Friday, September 12, 2008

Champions League rights sell for $900 million



T20 is getting richer and richer as it gets older day by day. ESPN-Star Sports (ESS) have paid to buy the rights of Champions League for a whooping $900 million. This makes the Champions League, promoted by the national boards of India, Australia and South Africa, the highest valued cricket tournament on a per-game basis.

ESS which lost the bid for the Indian Premier League (IPL) which seemed like a miscalculation on its part. The IPL rights were sold to Sony Entertainment Television and the Singapore-based World Sports Group, for more than 
$1 billion. ESS has the ICC's television rights till 2015 - they acquired the rights in 2006 for $1.1 billion over nine years. As the postponement of the ICC Champions Trophy seems to have made them anyhow go for this bid ,as because of the postponement they were left with no major cricket tournaments.

Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, said the bidding process had been "fair and transparent". "We have what we believe to be the best commercial deal for the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 season and for cricket fans across the world," Modi said. "All the bids received were of a very high standard."

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