SUN TV bags Hyderabad Franchise of IPL!

In a major development Chennai based SUN TV Network has won the franchise for Hyderabad Indian Premier League thereby replacing Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd (DCHL). With their bid to pay 85.05 crores a year for the next five years they have won the right to own the Hyderabad team. When the IPL Governing Council  met in Mumbai on Thursday to open the bids for the new IPL franchise Sun TV was found to have the highest bid amount. PVP Ventures were second highest with a bid of 69.03 crores. Kalanidhi Maran, the nephew of DMK chief M Karunanidhi owns SUN TV.

As reported by The Hindu it is believed that BCCI had kept the base price for the bid at Rs. 60 crore, per year. It is interesting to note that the previous owner Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd. had bought the franchise for Rs. 428 crore in 2008 and it was for a period of ten years.

The new franchise is expected to play in the forthcoming season of the IPL.

In an official release Sanjay Jagdale, secretary, BCCI, in an official release, said, "Sun TV Network has won the Hyderabad franchise for an amount of Rs 85.05 crore per year. This franchise fee represents a premium of over 100 per cent above the amount paid by DCHL for the Hyderabad Franchise in 2008."

The Board has also added a new clause in the contract making  it clear to the franchise that they hold the right to terminate the contract of the franchise in case of their inability  to pay its players.

The BCCI had invited bids for the new franchise from twelve cities including Noida, Cuttack, Kochi, Indore, Ahmedabad, Ranchi and Visakhapatnam.

Previous developments indicate that in September 2012 Deccan Chronicle Holdings (DCHL)formally floated a tender offering control of the franchise to the most successful bidder in order to allow banks to recover part of loans given to the company. BCCI had earlier asked the owners to  furnish a Rs 100 crore bank guarantee , but their failure to do so led BCCI to terminate Deccan Chargers from the IPL. It is also learnt that Mumbai based Kamla Landmarc Real Estate Holdings had bought Deccan Chargers on October 12, 2012. However, on October 16, 2012, BCCI terminated Deccan Chargers and they simultaneously announced a bid for Hyderabad franchise.