BCCI to incur a loss of over INR 2000 crores for halting IPL 2021 mid-way

After hosting just 29 matches of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was forced to postpone the T20 Championship. The decision was taken after there were reports of a potential bio breach and a number of players and support staff testing positive for the deadly virus.

Though the Indian board decided to postpone the tournament for an indefinite time considering the safety of the people involved, it is expected to cost them a lot financially. BCCI will be losing almost half of broadcast and sponsorship money for stopping the league mid-way. 

BCCI can incur the loss of a whopping INR  2000 crore due to the Indian Premier League. The biggest loss for the Indian board will be in the money they get from their official broadcasting partner, Star Sports. Star has signed a five-year contract where it is liable to pay INR 16,347 crore which equates to INR 3,269.4 crores per year.

Approximately 60 matches are played in a single IPL season and this means that Star Sports pays a stunning INR 54.5 crore to BCCI for every single match. Only 29 matches were played in IPL 2021 and this boils the equation down to Star paying just INR 1580 crores. This means a loss of Rs 1690 crore for the Board.

We would be losing anything between Rs 2000 to Rs 2500 crore: BCCI

Further, the title-sponsors VIVO, who are scheduled to pay INR 440 crores to BCCI for one IPL season, are likely to pay only half of the amount. The same will be the case for other sponsors including Unacademy, Dream11, CRed, Upstox, and Tata Motors, who pay in the range of Rs 120 crore each. Some subsidiary sponsors are also there.

“We would be losing anything between Rs 2000 to Rs 2500 crore for the midway postponement of this season. I would say something in the range of Rs 2200 crore will be closer to accurate estimation,” a senior BCCI official as quoted by the Times of India. on conditions of anonymity.

“Slash all the payments by half or a bit less and you will be reaching a loss in the range of 2200 crore. The actual losses could be much more but this is a back of the hand calculation for the season,” the official added.

The loss incurred by the BCCI is also expected to affect all the eight IPL franchises too. Every year, BCCI equally distributes some part of the revenue to all the eight franchises. Speaking about the same, the BCCI official said,  “It is difficult to say what kind of sponsorship and co-sponsorship money they earned this season as the economic climate has been pretty hostile.”

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