(10 February 2006 8:00 pm)

MUMBAI: After stating that it would be reissuing the Revenue Management Company tender, the Indian cricket board today scrapped the whole thing altogether and announced that it would instead be combining the tenders for terrestrial and global satellite rights.

The new tender will have a floor price of $ 450 million, combining the minimum guarantees ($ 350 million and 100 million) for the earlier two proposed tenders, a press statement issued by the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) said.

BCCI vice-president and marketing panel chairman Lalit Modi used the same arguments as he had done earlier. namely that "the changes are being made keeping in mind a recent Supreme Court ruling in a case between DD and Ten Sports."

"With this move, BCCI aims to pre-empt any likely issues that may arise over signal sharing between satellite rights and terrestrial rights players. With both rights under one banner, as per the new format, this issue will not arise," the Press Trust of India quoted Modi as saying.

The fresh tender is expected to be issued tomorrow and the winner anounced on 17 February.

It was yesterday that the BCCI announced it had awarded the contract for television productions of all the international and domestic cricket matches it conducts from March 2006 to March 2010. In what finally came down to a race between two contestants, Nimbus Sport bested TWI to secure the deal. Nimbus' quote of around $ 26 million was $ 1 million lower than TWI's bid, which sources say was in the region of $ 27 million.

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