We have limitations, admits Mallick

The Daily Star caught up with the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) governing council secretary Ismail Haider Mallick, who had been involved with the T20 tournament since its second edition. He addressed the challenges of organising such an event among other things. The excerpts are as follows: 

The Daily Star (DS): How far has the BPL come according to your expectations?

Ismail Haider Mallick (IHM): For the first three editions, we gave the BPL rights to three companies who were supposed to pay us. First of all, till date, we didn't receive the money that was promised to us. Back then, the franchises didn't pay up and players weren't getting paid either. That was a challenge.

 It (the tournament organising rights) can still be given to an Indian company but those old issues will come forth again. We can even have an auction but you'll see only five-six players getting paid and most of the players will remain unpaid. Suppose, a player goes for 80 lakh takas in the auction. The franchise will end up giving him 30 lakh takas.

We did fix it (regarding players' payment) and then came the match-fixing issue and we didn't hold the tournament for a year. Later the BPL was doing well and had good potential. But as the national team had an increasing number of matches in the FTP (Future Tours Programme), the time slot for the BPL shortened and we couldn't carry out the tournament in a fixed duration.

DS: Your take on the TV rights issue?

IHM: We are the only country among our neighbouring nations where TV channels don't get any money from subscriptions. The dish-cable bill you pay does not go to the TV channels. The 400-500 taka you pay as dish bill to Akash or local cable connections does not go to any TV channels. But in foreign countries, there is a subscription model.

The TV channel that broadcasts the PSL gets Tk 50 from the customers, whereas it's free here.

DS: Why isn't there a revenue-sharing model or a proper business model for BPL?

IHM: The PSL took 15 million dollars (150 crore taka) from the six franchises, and then gave away 95 per cent of the revenue. Here, we get 1 crore takas. If they hand us Tk 150 crores as franchise fee, then we would give them all the rights. You can't go both ways, you have to choose one.