NL Corresspondent
The Indian cricket board (BCCI) could witness another round of cash windfall during the next five-year cycle between 2023-2027 with estimated earnings of over USD 1.15 billion (INR 9 billion) from ICC's share of annual revenue.
While this is still not official but an influential ICC member said that it is just a matter of time before BCCI is officially given 38.50 per cent of ICC's annual revenue of 600 million USD, which comes to USD 231 million for world's richest cricket board.
“It is a proposed model and it's based on cricket (rankings), performance (in ICC events) and commercial (contribution to sport). Now India contributes such a significant share to the commercial element,” a senior BCCI source told PTI on condition of anonymity.
Such has been India's dominance that a list published by ESPN Cricinfo states that England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are second-best beneficiary with annual earnings of USD 41.33 million (6.89 per cent) while Australia with USD 37.53 million (6.25 per cent) are a distant third. The Pakistan Cricket Board are fourth with USD 34.51 million revenue which stands at 5.75 per cent.
During the last FTP cycle (2018-2022), ICC's annual revenue was near half USD 307 million approximately and USD 1536 million for a five-year period.
BCCI earned USD 405 million for five years (around USD 81 million per annum) after hefty bargaining between erstwhile Committee of Administrators (CoA) and the then ICC chairman Shashank Manohar, who didn't have too many friends in the board at that time. It was still around 26 per cent of the annual share back then.
In the last FTP cycle, ECB were second best with a share of 7.8 per cent while all other boards barring Zimbabwe got 7.2 per cent.
With secretary Jay Shah heading the ICC's all-powerful financial decision making Finance & Commercial Affairs (F&CA), the BCCI could drive home the point and increase their annual ICC revenue by nearly three times.
“During last cycle, BCCI never had a powerful representation the ICC's F&CA and now things have changed,” the source added.
As proposed model, ICC will allot around 11 per cent of its revenue for all associate nations this time while last time it was around 14 per cent.
