Franchises pose many questions ahead of the start of IPL 2020

As the Indian Premier League is heading to UAE, as informed by BCCI officials and it is set to start from September 19th to November 8th, it is high time for BCCI to announce further details. As there are less than 45 days for the showpiece event to start, the lack of clarity is creating a lot of noise.

The Indian board should at least start sharing what it has in mind with the franchises. As franchises still haven’t ‘officially’ heard from the BCCI yet. The following are the worries mentioned by the franchises, as reported by Times of India.

IPL GC and Franchises meeting

BCCI hasn’t communicated when it is planning to conduct a governing council meeting with all the franchises as till the time everybody is on the same page, the plan cannot move further. As per franchises, it is already too late and there should have been proper communication. The board just announced the dates a few days back as the T20 World Cup was postponed and a window was available for IPL. Though an official meeting is yet to be organized by the board.

Official confirmation of dates, venue, and match-schedule

The BCCI just announced the starting and the end date of the event. There is no official confirmation of the same yet. The owners and teams are under renegotiations with the sponsors as most of them were brought on board in February with IPL scheduled for March.

However, with this year’s edition becoming a television-only event, outside of India, renegotiation of sponsor deals are waiting to happen. The scenario has changed completely now and a lot of things are to be explained better, like, screen time, television exposure, prime time, and figures are to be informed in detail.

Revenue-sharing, ticket compensation, and accommodation

With all 60 matches to be played in one of the biggest IPL windows as 51 days, the team owners want the revenue sharing from the central pool, including the most important broadcast rights to remain the same and not change as they are a very big part of the total revenue.

The teams are also expected to lose 2.5 to 3.5 crores per match from the gate revenue, which comes to 20-25 crores in total. Is BCCI planning to compensate that? Also, accommodation in hotels is cheap in India due to bulk bookings which will be quite costlier in UAE with almost last minute bookings. Notably, IPL will almost book 60,000 room nights in UAE and you can expect the cost to be very high.

Player related details

A lot of details regarding the travel of players is expected from BCCI before things get underway, like flying players to UAE, travel of their family, travelling overseas players there, players loan system, replacements due to injury and none availability, policy for isolation and day to day as a lot of things have changed due to the “new normal”. Considering all this is the responsibility of franchises, a clear picture of all these details is expected from the board is much needed at the earliest.

Bio-secure Bubbles

With such a big event going to happen during COVID-19 time, the most important thing is the safety of players and a bio-secure bubble is a must. What kind of policy is BCCI planning to have for the same, also the franchises are also putting their own policies in place?

They have started to send their staff for quarantine and preparing their medical team into action. They have started sharing notes with team management and are educating the players from time to time, making policies for sanitization, and what not to do. As per them, nobody can take a chance and it can put the whole league under trouble.