While the blame game continues in the Lalit Modi versus Jagmohan Dalmiya battle, the Board of Control for Cricket in India is devising innovative ways to cream the game.
In the announcement made by BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi in Mohali on Thursday, the Board has already made USD 1.5 billion in its 100-day reign so far and is expected to fill its coffers further.
The BCCI will be looking to make money from the following in recent future:
- Mobile and SMS rights: If the mobile service providers are charging the customers for cricket SMS, they will have to give part of their earnings to the BCCI
- Telecast rights: Nimbus will hold the production rights only for the duration of a match and 72 hours after that. Thereafter, BCCI can they sell the feed to new bidders.
Modi also said that the richest cricket Board in the world will finally go online, with the BCCI portal expected to be launched in the next 3-4 weeks. A unique feature of the portal will be a live video scoreboard, whereby if the users click on a wicket they would be able to see a video clip of the same.
The BCCI expressed their concern over the deal between the International Cricket Council and Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) for the Champions Trophy. While GCC will seek sponsors for the ICC directly, there would be no monetary benefit for the host Indian board.
Going back to the Dalmiya issue, Modi shot down the former president's accusation that the process under which the BCCI had given production rights to Nimbus was murky.
"It was the cleanest bidding process ever. In fact all the bidders congratulated us for handling it in the most professional manner," Modi said, further stating that Dalmiya didn't know the A to Z of the bidding procedure.
"He knows the A to Z of bidding," intervened the Punjab Cricket Association president Inderjit Singh Bindra, "But he doesn't know anything about transparency in it."
Bindra, also a former Board president, further called Dalmiya an "embezzler" and said that none of the charges in the show cause notice to him were dropped by the BCCI.
"It is a detailed notice and Dalmiya will have to explain each and every charge," Modi added.
