Thilanga’s billion rupee LPL revival plan
SLPL came and went in 2012 and never made it back - File pic by Amila Gamage
The commercial success of the forthcoming Nidahas Trophy T20 tri-series in March will bolster Sri Lanka Cricket’s ambitious plan to revive the stalled Sri Lanka Premier League later this year.
This was revealed by Sri Lanka Cricket President Thilanga Sumathipala at a press conference held in Colombo this week to announce their commercial partners for the Nidahas Trophy tournament–a seven-match T20 tournament involving India and Bangladesh to celebrate the 70th Independence of
Sri Lanka.
The Nidahas Torphy tournament which is expected to generate a record Rs. 1 billion in profit will be played from March 6-18 at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
A window has been left in September to play the proposed tournament but the board is yet to finalise the formalities, including the format of the tournament.
“We believe we have the best package, we’ve got the best formula, we’ve got the best position to present the next Lankan premier league,” SLC president Thilanga Sumathipala said.
“The Nidahas Trophy is going to give us that platform, the Nidahas Trophy is going to give us the place where we have never ever seen our country’s cricket being positioned in the global market.”
“We are the only country that is not playing a franchise-based tournament in our region,” Sumathipala said. “We will go to the market and find who are the parties that are interested. We do not want make the same mistakes the SLC had done in the past. We have to make sure that genuine sponsors are coming through. We have to be transparent as this will be a product owned by SLC,” Sumathipala said.
SLC conducted their own T20 tournament, conceptualised on the lines of the highly successful Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2012, but crashed most dramatically in 2013 when each franchise was terminated after failing to pay the participation fee three weeks before the tournament was scheduled to begin.
One of the biggest draw back of the tournament was the absence of Indian players. The Indian cricket board banned their players taking part citing it’s a ‘private tournament’ but the board now seems to have got the nod from their wealthy neighbour to go ahead with the tournament. SLC is looking at teams from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and even England to compete, though no formal discussions are yet to be made.
Sri Lanka is the only ICC full member without a T20 league of their own. India has IPL, even though it’s not the oldest tournament in the world, it is certainly biggest T20 league on earth financially and otherwise.
The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is currently second in terms of number of people following the tournament and the Big Bash League (BBL) in Australia has been successful in filling stadiums.
West Indies has their own league in Caribbean Premier League (CPL) while Ram Slam T20 Challenge in South Africa and New Zealand’s Super Smash has been an important platform for their stars.
After the cancellation, the board had hoped to draw up a more lucrative business model alongside their Hong Kong-based commercial partner Somerset Entertainment Ventures (SEV) but despite several attempts the tournament never saw the light of the day.
However, the board now hopes their new marketing partner– a Singapore based Lagardere Sports Asia who was behind the the successful negotiations of media and broadcasting rights for the Nidahas Trophy could help Sri Lanka out in their ambitious plan.
“We are in discussion with Lagardere and we are quit happy to retain them on board,” Sumathipala added. “We are quite happy to have someone of Lagardere’s caliber working with us for the Premier League. We are quite busy with the Nidahas Trophy and once that is over, we will discuss about the Premier League. But there’s no reason as to why we should not go with them. Right now we are at a strategic level–how we are going to do, when are we going to do,” he explained. Lagardere Sports Asia is a sports marketing firm with a global presence.
Sri Lanka Cricket worked with Lagardere Sports to get commercial partners including media rights for the Nidahas Trophy–a tournament outside the Future Tour Programme (FTP).