How Does BCCI Earn Money?
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The Board of Control for Cricket in India or the BCCI is the official and primary governing body of cricket in India. The BCCI is an autonomous organisation and is not a part of the National sports federation of India, and as a matter of fact, they do not get any type of monetary funding or grants from the Indian Sports Ministry.
The BCCI is also the richest cricket board out of all the cricket-playing regions in the world and is one of the major boards of cricket, alongside England and Wales Cricket Board and Cricket Australia. So, the common question that arises for this autonomous governing body of cricket in India is regarding its revenue structure. If we talk about how BCCI earns money, we have to go through some pointers that describe the majority of the board’s revenue model. It is true that during the initial years, the BCCI was struggling to keep up their operation, but with the gradual success of Indian cricket in the world and the many right decisions that were made by them, it has become the richest cricket board in all of the world.
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How Does the BCCI Earn Money?
The initial years of the BCCI were rough in terms of economic gains. The 1987 World Cup hosted by the Indian cricket board was possible with the charitable move by Dhirubhai Ambani’s title sponsorship on behalf of the Reliance group for a sum of 1 million USD. And since then, it was a gradual upward flow for the BCCI with tons of improvements, opportunities and monetary gains. In the following, we have explained the methods of how BCCI earns money.
1) Media Rights
One of the massive sources of income for the BCCI is through their broadcasting media rights. The board grants the media broadcasting rights of the matches that feature the Indian cricket team to the networks for a huge sum of money. The cricket matches featuring team India attracts a large audience who tune in to catch the “Men in Blue” in action. The advertisers of different marketing agencies know this to be the best time to showcase their advertisements to a large, worldwide audience. This makes each and every broadcast of the game very valuable, thus the BCCI charges a lot of money for the media rights to broadcast the games. Back in 2008, the BCCI made a deal with Multi-Screen Media, Sony Network India and the World Sports Group (WSG) for the 10 years of broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League for a total of 2 Billion USD, tallying around INR 8200 crore by the end of the agreement. This alone has made the BCCI earn a revenue of INR 820 crore every year for the next ten years. After the end of the term of this massive deal, the following media rights for the worldwide Indian Premier League were sold to the Star India network for an incredible amount of 2.55 Billion USD, for a period of 5 years. So this should satisfy a big part of the question that asks how does BCCI make money.
2) Title Sponsorship
The second spot on the topic of how BCCI earns money is the title sponsorship. One of the biggest spots for advertisement is surely attaching the company’s name to one of the biggest cricket championship titles in the country. Yes, the spot of title sponsorship is a massive source of income for the BCCI in recent years. The company that sponsors the title of a cricket event, receives the most exposure, meaning more space for advertisement, a bigger logo, an enhanced time slot, the name and logo of the company over the trophy area, and a lot more. To achieve this spot, which is a golden opportunity for companies in terms of advertisement, they have to pay a huge sum of money to the BCCI. Currently, the rights for the title sponsorship have been sold to One97 communications, the company that owns Paytm, for the next four years. In terms of money, the company has paid around INR 203.28 crore to the BCCI for these exclusive rights. So be prepared to see more Paytm Ranji Trophy, T20 Series, Test series and so on in the future.
3) Team Sponsorship
Another huge contribution to the revenue model of the BCCI is through their official team sponsorship. Remember the Sahara logo at the centre of the Indian national cricket team, worn by legendary players while representing the country on the international stage of cricket? Imagine the amount of publicity and marketing benefit it does for the company. Hence being able to sponsor that is another golden opportunity for these types of companies, eventually paying a huge sum of money to the BCCI for its rights. For many years, Sahara India Pariwar were the official sponsor for the Indian Cricket team, until they dissolved the contract back in 2013. Following this, the companies like Star India and OPPO have been the official team sponsors for the period of 2014-17 and 2017-19, respectively. As of 2019, the official team sponsorship for the Indian Cricket team is taken up by BYJU’S. It is said that BYJU’S deal with the BCCI is for an amount of INR 1079 crores, for the contract from September 2019 to March 2022.
4) Official Kit Sponsors
The company that sponsors the official kit of the team has to pay a massive amount to the BCCI for their logo placement on the jersey. Nike was the previous kit sponsor for the team and had to pay about 12.13 Million USD to the board each year. In the five-year deal, Nike had to pay nearly 60.6 Million USD at the end of the term to the BCCI. The contract ended with Nike back in 2020 and since then, MPL has taken the charge of the official kit sponsors for the Indian cricket team, paying the base price of INR 65 lakhs per match and a total of INR 3 crore each year as the official merchandise partner. Thus, in the question of how BCCI earns money, you can check kit sponsorship on the list as a major part of it.
5) Revenue Earned via Bilateral Series
The ICC or the International Cricket Council is responsible for hosting various international cricket series between the cricket-playing countries. You have definitely heard about the India Tour of Australia, or the New Zealand Tour of India, etc. where a large amount of revenue is collected by the cricket boards of the participating countries. Similarly, whenever team India plays a bilateral series with a country, the BCCI get a part of the revenue earned from the events. The BCCI is among the big three cricket boards in the world, and due to their huge associated viewership of millions of Indian cricket fans, they earn a major share. Just accounting for the 2019-20 cricket series, the BCCI had earned around INR 950 crores in revenue.
6) Revenues from the Indian Premier League
Coming at the sixth spot on the topic of how does BCCI earn money, is the contribution of the IPL. The Indian Premier League is the biggest domestic T20 cricket tournament in the whole world. The IPL is one of the most attended, marketable and viewed sports events in the whole world. So it is natural for the BCCI-created IPL to generate massive amounts of revenue for the board throughout the years. Apart from title sponsorship, tournament sponsorship, media rights and the other previously mentioned sources of the tournament gaining money, there are a lot more things that produce revenue for the BCCI through IPL. Like other forms of advertisement throughout the events, stadium tickets, percentage of earnings from the franchises, and other things. All of these come into the massive picture of the total revenue earned by the BCCI through just their IPL brand.
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