The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), in an emergency meeting held yesterday, formed a five-member committee to deal with the tender of the worldwide media broadcast rights.
The committee will be led by its convener, BCB director Kazi Inam Ahmed. BCB directors Afzalur Rahman Sinha, Mahbub Anam, I.H. Mollick and Iqbal Hasan Mahmud are the other members of the committee.
In a bid to find a good deal, BCB floated the international tender for new worldwide media broadcast rights on April 24 for the next six years – till May 2020.
The interested parties can drop tenders from April 28 to May 5. This will be followed by an open auction on May 12 after the scrutinization of documents of the tenders received which is scheduled to be held on May 8.
Earlier, the BCB signed a US$ 56.88 million deal with Nimbus Sports International in 2006 but this was followed by blunders from the inexperienced board. The unpleasant Nimbus-BCB relationship ended in 2012 with the latter filing a case to realize US$ 20 million.
However, BCB has relaxed the rules this time around in order to allow the local TV channels to participate in the bidding. A local broadcaster with a year’s experience in the business can take part in the bidding to win the rights.
“We expect a good deal by selling the worldwide media rights this time. We’ll look at other documents before finalizing the deal. We’ll look into the bidders’ financial guarantee which is important for the deal,” said Kazi Inam Ahmed, also the chairman of the BCB marketing and commercial committee.
Team Bangladesh will play a total of around 90 matches including 31 Tests, 43 to 47 ODIs and 14 T20s till May 2020. During that same period, Bangladesh are scheduled to host India in 2014 and 2016.
