MUMBAI: A moment of respite and glory may come for Multi Screen Media (MSM) – the official broadcaster of the Indian Premier League (IPL) as the league’s governing council floated a proposal of adding two new teams to replace the suspended Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals’ (RR) spot.
Additionally, the IPL governing council also proposed that after the two year ban was lifted from both the teams, the IPL will be a 10 team affair.
“One suggestion is to have two new teams only for two years and replace them with CSK and RR in 2018 when they come back,” an IPL GC member told PTI today (27 August).
“The second suggestion is to make it 10 teams from 2018 onwards once the two suspended franchises complete their sentence,” he added.
The council’s two proposals will be put forward to the BCCI Working Committee on 28 August.
MSM holds the broadcasting rights of IPL till 2018, which means that the last season of its IPL broadcasting tenure will be an elongated one with 10 teams. Trade media experts and economists believes that the MSM will make a profit from the revenue generated in the 2018 edition. If the proposal is accepted, it will be icing on the cake for MSM as 10 teams means more number of matches and subsequently a longer time span to monetise.
The broadcaster raked in more than Rs 1000 crore in 2015 edition of the multi million dollar tourney. It may be recalled that MSM bagged the IPL broadcasting rights for a whopping $1 billion.
Broadcasters, who are gearing up to bid for the IPL telecast rights when it comes up for grasp again, are making their permutations and combinations to bid for the tournament. It’s no rocket science that they will be following the developments closely.
Now it remains to be seen whether CSK and RR players are relieved by their respective franchises and are allowed to participate in next edition of IPL.
