Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy wants e-auction for IPL media rights

BJP functionary and Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy has written a letter to the Justice RM Lodha, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India and the head of the Lodha Committee.

RM Lodha had recently come up with the reforms in the Indian cricket. Swamy wants Lodha to consider bringing ‘e-tender’ or ‘e-auction’ firmly for the coming years in the Indian Premier League for the media rights auction.

Swamy further has also marked a letter to the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), who are at the helm of all affairs as BCCI looks to tender media rights for the period of next five years. Earlier last year, Times of India had suggested that the stakeholders in the game were interested in the e-form of an auction to ensure there is an absolute transparency.

“India has seen two of the biggest scams in coal and spectrum allocation over the last decade due to non-transparency in process of allocation. The economic value with cricket rights is no less,” Swamy wrote.

The letter comes in a day before the IPL governing council is set to meet in New Delhi on Friday to take a further call on the issue of media rights and tournament sponsors.

The current Tournament sponsors’ VIVO’s contract gets over after the 10th season. The current media rights are owned by Sony Entertainment, who have the rights from the first season of the tournament.

“In my considered view, e-auctions ensure greater process control, increased transparency, shorter lead times and generate an extremely competitive price discovery environment resulting in substantial gains for the seller. The e-auction process has also been followed by the government of India for all major auctions,” he added.

The other stakeholders also believe that something of this sort would be a feasible option and it is the way forward for maintaining transparency for the next five years and more to come.

The cricketing board with CEO Rahul Johri has been a firm supporter on ensuring transparency as it goes about discovering the right market price for the most valued property in the game.