First-class cricketers could receive a major pay-hike; India cricket rights tender in January '18

With the new year approaching, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is set to bring out the tender for Indian cricket media rights and we are expected to witness a flurry of changes. The board has fixed to bring it out in January 2018, which in turn will present a fresh canvas for the game at the international and domestic level over the next four years.

The developments can lead to an aggressive bid for these rights, which will, in turn, have a massive impact on other policies. The most pressing concern of the new broadcast deal will be how India’s ‘home season’ will shape up in the backdrop of the new International Cricket Council (ICC) league structure.

According to Cricbuzz, a cricket pundit was quoted as saying, “At the moment, a first-class cricketer ends up earning around Rs 12 lakh per year, which is ridiculously low. Alternately, there are cricketers who don’t play the IPL or may not wish to in the future, simply to keep their prospects in the longer version intact.”

He also added, “A separate corpus needs to be created for them. That is if you want India to have more Cheteshwar Pujaras.”

Experts predict a 20-25% rise in BCCI’s per match income from media rights

The current media IPL rights are owned by Star India Pvt Ltd for Rs 16,347 crore on a five-year deal. The terms of the deal dictate that Star pays BCCI Rs 43 cr per game for all international cricket played in India. However, BCCI expects this figure to rise (per match) anywhere between 20-25% at a minimum. In fact, given the recent sale of BCCI properties, market experts reckon the figure to be much higher.

With the media and title rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) crashing through the roof a couple of months ago, the BCCI can only expect a bigger tender, that’ll be coming out within less than two months from now.