CHENNAI: The BCCI’s announcement that the IPL will be held this year is good news for the broadcasters and franchises. Revenue from the event sustains them and also makes BCCI by far the richest cricket board. However, the prevailing economic situation may force changes in spending plans. Committed to a certain sum contractually, individual sponsors of the eight teams may not be in a position to spend as generously, considering that business has been down.

Not many see a dramatic turnaround in the coming months either. On an average, a franchise earns around Rs 30-Rs 40 crore from sponsorship in a season. How the economic downturn affects this has to be seen. Some of the franchises apprehend a dip in this figure. Second, if matches are played behind closed doors, there will be no gate money. Ticket sales from seven home games amount to around Rs 15-Rs 25 crore, depending on venue capacity. This is a source of income for the franchises which will dry up completely, considering that fans in stands is not a likely scenario anywhere at the moment. Despite these, there is no chance of franchises suffering losses.

All eight are assured nearly Rs 220 crore each from media rights. Annual average operational cost including everything for an IPL franchise is around Rs 120-Rs 140 crore. Even if the franchises lose out on sponsorship and gate receipts, they are covered by their share of the central pool. Even then, apprehending comparatively lower returns from sponsorship and nothing from ticket sales, some of the franchises have started thinking of cutting cost. With player payments, hotel rents and travel fare being non-negotiable, they will look at areas like marketing, publicity and hospitality to reduce operational costs. “Our annual publicity and marketing budget is Rs 8-Rs 10 crore.

Since we can’t save on fees of players, hotel and travel, we are thinking of cutting down on the marketing front. It’s possible that we will go slow this season and not have publicity programmes. Other than zero from ticket sales, we are not sure if our sponsors will stick to their commitments in the aftermath of the pandemic which has affected economic activities,” said a franchise official. This exercise may result in losses for professionals hired specifically for publicity purposes.

“Those involved directly with our operations may not be affected, but we employ people indirectly during the IPL. It’s an area we have to review if the gross income goes down. Cost-cutting can affect hospitality also. Certain things may have to be scaled down,” added the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Delhi Capitals director Mustafa Ghouse thinks along similar lines, without looking too far ahead. “A large part of marketing is attracting fans to the stadium. If that’s not an element, there is scope on that front (of cutting cost), but it’s difficult to say how exactly it’s going to be until we have clarity on how the IPL is going to happen.”