The performance of the Pakistan team in the last few months across formats hasn’t been satisfying as they were kicked out from the group stage of the recent Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, under the leadership of Babar Azam, in the West Indies and United States of America. This has decreased the craze of the batter around the world.
Babar Azam didn’t enjoy a great time with the bat in hand during the T20 tournament too, as he could manage only 122 runs in four innings, at an average of 40.66 and a poor strike rate of 101.66, with a best score of only 44 runs.
This has already made a huge issue among the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) as they have started to lose interest regarding the broadcasting deals for their international home games and were forced to sell them at nearly half of its reserve price.
Pakistan fails to generate revenue from broadcasting rights
The PCB has settled for nearly half of its reserve price kept for the selling broadcasting rights for the international games at home for the period between August 2024 and December 2026.
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The rights for the local region have been sold for PKR 1.72 billion, which is at last PKR 1.48 billion less than the reserve price of PKR 3.2 billion the board kept for selling the rights.
The officials of the board haven’t shared the figures but claim that the rights were sold at more than twice the amount from the previous rights cycle of the future tour Programme 2021 to 2024.
As per the details available, the Pakistan board has recently sold its Pakistan region broadcasting rights for 28 months to a local consortium of ARY and Tower Sports and claimed to have sold the broadcasting rights with a higher amount compared with the last contract.
The Shan Masood-led side is going to play seven games of the red-ball format in the 2024-25 season. The rights included 11 games of the longest format, 26 one-day international games, and the 24 T20Is, as the board said that the rights were awarded ‘following a transparent tender process’ in which several bids were received.
The ODIs include a couple of three-nation bilateral series in the current and next seasons. The fact that no such foreign broadcasters showed interest in Pakistan’s international games in the home season is an indication that the PCB has been facing regular issues in generating revenues expected from broadcasting rights.
“It is far less than initially what the PCB had anticipated while keeping its reserve price of PKR 3.2 billion.” The source spoke on the development. PTV brought the broadcasting rights after sub-licensing for PKR 500 million from the consortium.
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They are also finding it hard to get broadcasters for the upcoming three-match Test series against England at home in the late autumn, with Sky Sports showing no interest at all in securing the rights for the UK territory, given their main focus has been towards the football in the winter and various other T20 leagues, and the upcoming ICC tournaments, one of which is the Champions Trophy 2025, scheduled to take place in Pakistan in February next year.
However, the PCB is confident enough that with a few weeks still in hand, they will eventually get a broadcaster for the series in the UK, which is expected to be a cracker one, as England showed ultra-aggression in their last trip to gain a 3-0 margin victory.
