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Wheels within deals

By 4.30 pm Thursday, August 20, we'll know the answer to the big one.

And the big one in Indian cricket, right now, is the question of which agency gets the television rights for the foreseeable future.

The deliberations are still on as I write this -- but the word is that the final decision will be taken later this evening, though it will only be made public at the official media briefing tomorrow.

The buzz we are getting out of the BCCI, though, indicates that the rights will go to two channels -- and one of them will be Doordarshan, thanks to Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan, who has entered the deliberations as a major factor.

Mahajan wants to parlay DD's reach (and the new sports channel, launched just under a year ago) into big money. And as things stand, the plan seems to be for either Zee, or Sony, to tie up with DD, in a fashion similar to the ESPN-Star Sports tieup last year.

Sony has already signalled its intention of being a big-time player, having plonked down a whopping $7.75 million for rights to cricket in Sri Lanka for the next 18 months. Zee for its part is readying to launch its own sports channel, and both these private entities are bidding to become DD's partner in the deal.

DD, Zee, Sony and the ESPN-Star combo have already assured the BCCI, by way of bank guarantees, that they have the serious money it takes to play the game. Now it is merely a matter of making the choice -- and indications are that politics and back-room bargaining more than the intrinsic worth of the various contenders will decide the final outcome.

ESPN-Star appears, at this point, to be entirely ruled out. And of the two others, Zee appears to have the inside track on becoming DD's partner in arms -- if only because of the Mark Mascarenhas factor.

Mascarenhas is well in with the powers that be -- which, in Indian cricket, means Jagmohan Dalmiya and, at this point in time, Mahajan. And Mascarenhas has his eye on bagging the rights to produce the telecasts, for whichever channel(s) eventually wins the battle. Sony, however, has indicated that if it wins the battle, it might be a South African production house (the same one that pioneered stump vision and other innovations) that will play producer -- which leaves Mascarenhas out in the cold.

All of which is why the smart money is on Zee TV winning the race, the way matters stand just now.

Meanwhile, the BCCI will simultaneously announce the identity of the team sponsor for the coming season -- and to nobody's surprise, Wills, the existing sponsor, has the inside track and is likely to walk away with the honours. Again, this is despite the fact that nations such as Australia, South Africa and England have been actively discouraging cigarette companies from sponsorship.

Money, in this instance, calls the tune -- Wills, throughout the last season, was coughing up a phenomenal Rs 2.5 million per match, and that is the kind of figure no other Indian corporate can, or will, match. So scruples in re the moral aspects of taking cigarette money will fly out the window, as money strolls in the BCCI door.

The BCCI has all the justification it needs, right in place. For starters, there is no clause in the BCCI constitution prohibiting it from accepting cigarette sponsorship. As to what happens when the team travels to countries like Australia, Wills has a sports division which will promote the deal. True, the company produces sports goods only on paper, but there is enough paper to back its claim as a sports goods manufacturer, and the BCCI can use that to paper over its own conscience.

An interesting sidelight is the fact that the marketing committee, now meeting in Mumbai to decide on these two key issues, is made up of the board president, secretary, treasurer -- and Jagmohan Dalmiya.

The last named is president of the ICC. And officially, is not supposed to be taking a hand in the internal affairs of any country. When you ask him questions about the BCCI, his immediate response is that he cannot comment on it, as he has no locus standi. His presence at the marketing committee deliberations, however, proves something most of us have known all along -- that when it comes to Indian cricket, the big decisions are taken by Dalmiya, while the rest go along for the ride.