BCB fixes floor price at $20m

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has set a floor price of 20 million dollars for its worldwide media rights over the period from May 1, 2014 to April 30, 2020. Three companies are expected to take part in an open bidding to be held at a city hotel today. The auction process will be followed by a board meeting of the BCB.
Mediacom, which owns Maasranga Television, Virgo Media, which owns Channel 9, and Gazi TV put forward offers from the local market while from the international market Sporty Solutionz -- which owns Star Sports -- had submitted technical offers. But according to sources, Virgo Media was disqualified because they failed to show their company's net-worth when the offers were verified at a BCB meeting at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.
To evaluate the market value of the media rights property, the BCB appointed an Australian company named Futures Sports and Entertainment, and as per their calculations, for the 88 international matches to be played in the country over the six-year period, the value should be around 50 million dollars.
Many experts believe that the value of the three-match ODI series against India next month and a Test and ODI series the next year against this country will itself be close to the floor price, and despite this fact, whisperings are there of a non-participation in the open bidding and in that event the BCB may go for negotiations with the bidders. But a board director, on condition of anonymity, said that they would not compromise with their floor price and rather go for re-tendering if the target was not fulfilled.
Since elevation to the Test arena, BCB struck their first five-year TV deal with WorldTel which was finally taken over by ESPN-STAR for 11.75 million dollars and then the second and last long-term deal was made with Nimbus by a groundbreaking deal of 56.88 million dollars, but the board had bitter experience with the deals.
Still the question remained whether the board justified their property's value by setting this floor price, although they improved their value from the earlier projection of 14 million dollars, when their nominated company evaluated much more. In 50 million dollars the production and other costs are involved, but many still believe that the value should not be less than 30 million dollars.