Sri Lanka Cricket delays domestic rights decision

The Sri Lanka Cricket Interim Committee has delayed a decision on awarding its local television rights for the forthcoming three-year period as it evaluates three offers.

The SLC was due to discuss bids for rights covering the 2015-2018 period at a meeting tomorrow (Wednesday).

Pakistan is set to play Test, one-day international and Twenty20 series against Sri Lanka from June 17 to August 1, with SLC now committed to resolving the issue before the end of this month.

According to local media reports, the cash-strapped SLC has so far received three bids, with terrestrial sports broadcaster the Carlton Sports Network the clear front-runner.
CSN has reportedly tabled an offer of Rs175.5m (€2.5m/$2.76m) – Rs65.5m more than the Rs100m offered by state broadcaster Rupavahini. Specialist sports channel MTV is said to have placed a bid of Rs51.5m for the rights.

Sri Lanka Cricket chief executive Ashley de Silva told the country’s Sunday Times newspaper: “The Tender Committee which met prior to the Interim Committee meeting to evaluate the tender felt that they needed further details with regard to the matter and they decided to put it off for a further date. The matches are scheduled to begin in June, so we have to finish awarding the tender before the end of the month.”