The petitioners submitted that BCCI, which is entitled to 21 percent of gross revenue of ICC for the cycle broadcast 2015-23, will be receiving at least Rs 1,000 crore less due to Manohar’s “unilateral offer” for a six per cent cut in the revenue-sharing model.

The petitioners also claimed that they had filed the petition based on newspaper reports and details furnished by Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, a member of the BCCI. When the dubious issue was raised in front of a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice S Vaidyanathan, the Judges questioned whether the petition could be entertained as a PIL since it was a private agreement between two parties.

Media Rights Income for 2015-23 has earned a whopping $1.9 billion

The esteemed bench also asked the counsel for the petitioners whether he would like to cancel the petition or want the court to intervene and pass orders. Hearing the counsel’s reply that he would like to get instructions from his clients first, the bench posted the matter to 20th April.

According to the former CBI director, the broadcast revenue to ICC was estimated to be in the range between $900-925 million for the Rights Cycle 2007-15 and sponsorship revenue was estimated between $600-650 Million for the same period. He also said that the Media Rights Income for 2015-23 has earned a whopping $1.9 billion and that the broadcast rights for the cycle have more than doubled from the previous cycle.

He also submitted that the sum total revenue for the cycle 2015-23 will exceed $2.5 billion at current conversion rate comes to more than Rs.16,750 crores. The petitioner filed that 20.3 percent of the sum is due to BCCI’s participation in the ICC events for the mentioned cycle and the amount is almost Rs.3,400 crores.

It is vividly known that it is the huge Indian market and sponsorship which contributes to more than 80 percent of the revenue generated by world cricket and the PIL said adding it was in this background all the members of ICC, the test cricket playing nations agreed in February 2014 to pay a percentage of ICC revenue to BCCI.

The petitioner also claimed that the present BCCI Chief Shashank Manohar, who also became the Chairman of the ICC with effect from 9th November 2015, received a general body approval to mitigate downward revision of BCCI’s revenue from the world body.

According to the PIL, TNCA first wrote to BCCI complaining that the mandate given by its chief would result in a loss of more than Rs 3,000 crore to the board till 2031. Surely this will be a huge loss for BCCI if the new law is implemented.

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