BCCI invites tenders for team sponsor rights

With the Sahara Group's multi-million dollar team sponsorship deal ending in December, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Saturday issued an Invitation To Tender (ITT) for the Jan 1, 2014 to March 31, 2017 period.

The sponsorship rights will cover BCCI, International Cricket Council (ICC) and Asian Cricket Council (ACC) events. The deal includes the right to be called the 'official team sponsor' and to display a commercial logo on the team clothing of the senior men's team, the Under-19 men's team, the men's A-team and the women's team.

The ITT will be available at the BCCI headquarters at the Wankhede Stadium here from Nov 11 to Dec 7 for a non-refundable fee of Rs.2 lakh, BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said in a statement.

Patel added that bids will be accepted until 3 p.m. Dec 9 when they will be opened and evaluated and the tender awarded in the presence of the bidders.

The ITT has resulted because Sahara had announced in May that it will not renew its sponsorship of the Indian team after the contract expires in December. It also pulled out its Pune Warriors India team from the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The decision came after the Lucknow-based firm's demand to bring down the IPL franchisee fee was not agreed upon by BCCI. Sahara failed to pay the full fee of the Warriors for the current year which resulted in BCCI encashing the bank guarantee, prompting the Pune-based franchise to pull out.

Later in October, Pune Warriors India were terminated from IPL by BCCI.