BCCI Abandons Broadcast Deal with Nimbus Over Non-Payment

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Monday scrapped the contract with its broadcast rights holder Nimbus for defaulting on payments and forfeited the bank guarantee amount of $388m.

Nimbus held TV rights for all of the BCCI international and domestic matches played at home.

BCCI officials said the contract was terminated because Nimbus had not paid the 50% advance for both the recent England and West Indies series.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the BCCI’s Working Committee in Delhi.

Nimbus, which renewed its rights for Indian cricket in October 2009, had requested a delay in payment. The development will affect the finals of the domestic Ranji Trophy, which begin on December 16th.

The termination of Nimbus means that the rest of the domestic season would not be televised. It was also learnt that the working committee members were unhappy about World Series Hockey (WSH) being promoted in the air time scheduled for cricket.

Nimbus released a statement claiming that it had “acted in compliance of its contractual obligations”

“Nimbus Communications Ltd (Nimbus) has seen reports in the media in relation to cricket rights licensed to Nimbus by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

“Given the confidentiality provisions of such contracts, Nimbus is unable to discuss details with the media, but can confirm that it has acted in compliance of its contractual obligations and variations agreed between the parties from time to time.

“Nimbus is working towards achieving full resolution of any differences that may have arisen between the parties and is hopeful of a reasoned conclusion of these in the coming weeks.

“Obviously, it has fully reserved all its rights and options, including invoking the arbitration process if need be.

“No further statement will be made by Nimbus in this regard till its discussions with BCCI are concluded in the coming weeks.”

Apart from the current payment, the BCCI and Nimbus also had a long-pending ‘issue’ over radio rights. Nimbus was not happy with the All India Radio’s offer and had asked the BCCI to deal with them directly.

Numbus owns the NEO Cricket channel launched in 2008. It had exclusive broadcast rights for all International and domestic cricket played in India from 2006-2014.

To read more on this topic go to iSportconnect’s discussion: Where next for BCCI sponsorship?