Zee wins battle with ESPN-Star for Indian cricket

Zee Networks has won the battle against ESPN-Star Sports and bagged the lucrative contract from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to telecast cricket played in the country for the next four years.

In an intensely fought bidding war, Zee outbid ESPN-Star Sports by upping its earlier offer of $260 million to $308 million and left the BCCI with no option but to award the contract to it.

While announcing the BCCI decision, the board president Jagmohan Dalmiya however said the board had placed "certain conditions" that would have to be first met by Zee, before the letter of intent could be issued in Zee's favour.

The conditions included depositing $20 million "within two or three days" and thereafter providing a bank guarantee for the remaining $288 million.

"If they (Zee) fulfil the conditions, they will get it. Once the preliminary conditions are met, we will issue the letter of intent," Dalmiya said.

He did not elaborate on the other conditions placed before Zee. In a similar situation, Doordarshan muscled in and forced Ten Sports to share telecast rights of India-Pakistan matches in Pakistan on a revenue-sharing basis.

Both the contestants, Zee Network and ESPN-Star Sports, have pulled all punches in their bid for the BCCI contract, which would open up their channels to the world's largest cricket-crazy country and that meant huge advertisement revenues.

In a last ditch attempt to grab the contract at its presentation to the BCCI marketing committee on Saturday, ESPN-Star Sports increased its bid from $230 million quoted in its tender document to an astounding $308 million over a five-year term.

Rival Zee had quoted $260 million and the hard-bargaining cricket board captains decided to squeeze Zee's Chairman Subhash Chandra to match the upped ESPN-Star Sports offer.

He agreed at the board committee session at the Taj Coromandel hotel here today, in fact offering $308 million for four years, board sources said.

The ESPN-SS team too was present in full strength at the final session of the BCCI negotiations and tried its best to convince the board that it would be safer to bet on a tested partner rather than try out Zee, which did not have much experience in sport coverage.

Zee had countered this pointing that none of the channels, barring Ten Sports, had its own cricket production facilities.

There were five companies producing cricket for them and all the five had offered their services to Zee, Chairman Chandra has assured the BCCI negotiators.

Apart from his higher bid, what could have tilted the scales in Chandra's favour was his pledge to invest substantially in improving domestic cricket and its popularity among the sport lovers. He has also promised to promote other sports, such as hockey and football.