The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is staring at a potential financial loss with their home series against Australia being postponed today and New Zealand in danger of postponement according to Insidesport the Indian website. Bangladesh were scheduled to host Australia and New Zealand respectively in June and August for two Tests each, which are part of the ICC Test championship.
The Australia series was in doubt 10 days ago when their Test skipper Tim Paine called their Bangladesh tour "unlikely to go ahead". The New Zealand series is also uncertain with New Zealand Cricket’s chief executive officer David White indicating that they were thinking about postponing all future tours in July and August.
The BCB are desperately trying to find a new national team sponsor. Their sponsorship deal with Anglo-Dutch consumer giant Unilever expired in January and it was in the process of naming a new sponsor before the global coronavirus pandemic began. On January 21, BCB sought an Expression of Interest for a two-year long team sponsorship bid with a floor price of $USD 6.5 million. It however could not attract any sponsor before the home series against Zimbabwe, which forced the cricket oversight body to take an interim sponsor in Akash, a DTH company owned by Beximco.
The BCB are also currently looking for a new media rights deal. The $USD 20.02 million deal with GaziTV signed in 2014 is ending on 30th April 2020 and were now due to be in the market to woo the new media rights partner for the next cycle.
BCB cricket operations chief Akram Khan said they were concerned about the financial impact of the crisis, but felt that this was wrong to think about finance in the time of a global crisis. “This is not the right time to think or consult about it. Just pray that this situation ends soon. We will see it later”, Akram said.
BCB chief executive officer Nizamuddin Chowdhury told New Age, the Bangladesh daily. “We are in a much better position compared to some other boards that are going to lose huge revenue. It’s a situation that we cannot control.”
The biggest issue which BCB will face is that some of the other boards are also currently in the market to renew their media rights deal. Cricket West-Indies have been looking for a new broadcast deal for 6 months. The SriLankan Cricket Board launched their tender in February and are yet to complete the process. Pakistan Cricket Board like others will also be in the market soon. This kind of competition and current market situation will make things difficult for BCB to expect any substantial increase on the next cycle of the rights from the potential media rights partners.
John Stephenson
john@cricketinvestor.co.uk
