BCB ready to strike short term sponsorship deal

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is eyeing to pen down a short-term sponsorship deal as they are ready to wait for the economy to get stable.

The effect of the economic recession put an impact on the contract of the new title sponsorship in Indian Premier League (IPL).

Chinese mobile company VIVO agreed to provide 440 crore rupee each year before the contract was suspended due to the border standoff between the two Asian giants’ economic countries.

The online-based fantasy gaming platform Dream Eleven finally earned the rights of the 2020 IPL title sponsor in place of VIVO with only 222 crore rupee. 

BCB is taking advance preparation for the national team sponsorship in the wake of the economic meltdown more so after observing what had happened in the IPL.

“You all have seen the new contract of the IPL. It has been bought around half-price of the previous sponsor,” BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury said.

“We don’t predict that we will get less-valued sponsorship but at the same time we all have to understand the current situation of the market economy,” he said.

Time has come for selling the sponsorship for the Bangladesh National Cricket Team. Though the process had been started long ago, everything has been halted due to the devastating coronavirus pandemic.

Even though COVID-19 shrieked the market, the BCB was in trouble for sponsorship before the meltdown. But the whole world has been rampant in the wake of the coronavirus effect. There was no positive response despite being extended the timeframe of the tender submission.

BCB faced no problem to find a new sponsor after the postponement of the contract with Robi, who was one of the top mobile operators in the country.

Unilever, a multinational company, struck a 17-month deal from September 1, 2018 to January 31, 2020 with the BCB at the expense of Tk 33 crore. BCB created a new possibility of getting an additional sum of money.

For this, the apex body of the country’s cricket bargained three times more than the previous contract from February 1, 2020 to March 31, 2023.

They gave the base price of Tk 85 crore in their tender but the board witnessed a different experience. On January 8, they floated their tender seeking for the new sponsorship and gave a timeframe to the interested company to submit the proposal for the sponsorship by January 26. But they extended the time frame not to see any company in the bidding. There is no gain to do this. They had to be forced to go in different mechanisms.     

The BCB took initiative to manage the title sponsor for the national team, Bangladesh ‘A’ team, Under-19 Team and women’s national team. As per it, they started bargaining with different national and multinational companies alongside corporate houses all over the country.

They started discussing with some companies but they had to suspend the discussion due to the coronavirus pandemic. The BCB wants to start from the beginning after they confirmed the tour in Sri Lanka.

The BCB ensured the suspended three-match Test series against Sri Lanka for which they have to find a new sponsor for the team prior to the outset of the series on October 24.

“We’ve to wait for a good situation to strike a long-term sponsorship deal. Apparently, we wish to get a series-based contract so that we don’t have to face any big sponsorship deal,” he said.

“As the tour in Sri Lanka has been confirmed, we’re going to start the process of the title sponsorship. Our discussion was going on with some interested companies. We’ll soon start it,” he added.

“We want to wait for the long-term deal until the situation improves. Apparently, we wish to get a series-based contract,” he concluded.