BCCI The Richest Cricket Board: We live in a world where money controls almost everything. Money is also the reason behind the rise of the BCCI in the Cricketing World. The recent test series victory of India over Australia brought delight to the Indian fans. Still, it was the cricketers who won the real prize after BCCI President Sourav Ganguly announced a bonus of INR 5 crore for the Indian test cricket team even when the whole world was hit hard by the pandemic, as we saw many economies crumble down to their knees.
This story tells how the BCCI is way ahead of what it used to be. In 1983, when Kapil Dev led the Indian Cricket team beat West Indies to lift India’s first World Cup, the BCCI associates had to organize cash from famous singer Lata Mangeshkar to send congratulatory messages to the team. After 37 years, BCCI is the richest cricket governing body with an estimated worth of INR 14,860 crores.
It’s worth finding out what changed in the past years that made a Cricket board this rich.
The craze for Cricket in India
Its true craze for Cricket in India is on the next level. Many incredible and talented players didn’t even get a chance to represent India as there was no place for them in the team. To be honest, we all have dreamt of playing in Indian colors and making that World Cup Winning shot. If you have not ever thought of that, then you are lying. Jokes apart! Regardless we all can’t represent India, but we all love to watch cricket on our televisions. India is the biggest television market for cricket, and almost 80% of the game’s viewership comes from here.
It means the other teams playing bilateral series against India get a chance to fill their bank accounts with loads of money. Thanks to this craze, the BCCI adds a lot of revenue to their name every year.
The Turning Point
Until 1993, Doordarshan, which is a government-operated network used to telecast cricket matches in India. Not only this, they even forced the BCCI to pay five lakhs for every live telecast. Seems like a weird business model, right? But thanks to Jagmohan Dalmiya and his resistance against Doordarshan, BCCI won the case in 1995 over broadcasting rights. Dalmiya’s decision to open sports broadcasting to private channels is termed the turning point. The early 2000s saw Indian cricket and its commercial revenue grow exponentially.
In the very first deal, BCCI sold the television rights for India and England bilateral series to a foreign company called TWI, also known as Trans World International. As tables turned in the other direction, Doordarshan now had to pay TWI $1 million for the rights to telecast matches in India.
Currently, Tata is the media rights owner of IPL – Indian Premier League and other subcontinent matches. Reportedly they paid Rs 16,347 crores to the BCCI in order to acquire rights for five years which will end in 2022. The BCCI is set to get a huge cash influx with their new broadcasting rights for IPL as it is expected they will fetch around USD 5 billion or 36,000 crore INR for the next five years.
The Golden Goose – Indian Premier League
The BCCI made a series of good decisions, and coming up with the idea of the world’s largest T20 league is one of them. It allowed the business to enter cricket and huge money started following their way. If we look at stats from 2019-2020, BCCI’s total annual income was estimated at INR 3,370 crore, including INR 2,500 crore from the IPS and the rest 950 crores from bilateral cricket with other nations.
The addition of two new franchises Lucknow and Ahmedabad, will take the total to 12 teams competing for the title from the next season. Reportedly, the new Lucknow IPL team was bought by RPSG Group for Rs. 7,090 crores.
In the present scenario, the BCCI is earning more than 15 crores per IPL match from broadcasting rights and sponsors. It is way more than what ICC earns per international match. There is a reason why IPL is established as the biggest T20 league in the world, and after learning how much money is involved, I think we don’t need to get into this more than this.
Sponsorship Deals
The List doesn’t end here. You know when there are popular personalities; you will see brands lucrative with money. The BCCI also invites bids for their various sponsorships, from Team Kits and broadcasters to Team sponsors and Title sponsors.
The current sponsor list includes some big names like:
- Star Sports (Broadcasters)
- Tata
- Byju’s (Team Sponsor)
- Paytm (Title Sponsor)
- Dream 11 (Partners)
- Hyundai (Partners)
- Ambuja Cements (Partners)
- Kit Sponsors(MPL Sports)
Ranking Top 10 Richest Cricket Board
Cricket ranks second in the List of most-watched sports in the world. Every cricket-playing country has its cricket board which earns huge amounts in many ways like BCCI from IPL, CA from Big Bash, PCB from PSL, and many more. Let us rank the top 1o richest Cricket boards.
- Board of Control for Cricket India
- Cricket Australia
- England and Wales Cricket Board
- Pakistan Cricket Board
- Bangladesh Cricket Board
- Cricket South Africa
- New Zealand Cricket
- Cricket West Indies
- Zimbabwe Cricket
- Sri Lanka Cricket
Endnotes
Aforesaid, the Indian Premier League is the golden goose as more than half of the BCCI’s revenue comes from the IPL. The BCCI never did anything wrong in all these years to earn this much money. In fact, it’s their primary ability to leverage the benefit out of this loved game among the masses.
The BCCI holds many accolades, including the players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and MS Dhoni, who have insurmountable brand value in the market. It helps the players and the BCCI to maintain its financial position in the world of advertising.
This was the story of how BCCI became the richest Cricketing board in the world. We hope you liked it. Until next time.