NEW DELHI (AFP) - The television rights wrangle in Indian cricket took a dramatic turn when the sport's administrators decided to cancel the original tender prompting ESPN-Star Sports to withdraw its case.
ESPN-Star had challenged the award of broadcasting rights for all international cricket played in the country for the next four years to rival Zee Network for 308 million dollars, saying Zee had no experience of telecasting live cricket.
But with the legal battle threatening Australia's upcoming tour of India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) informed the Bombay High Court on Tuesday it would cancel the original tender and seek a fresh bid.
ESPN-Star Sports, jointly owned by Walt Disney and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., withdrew its petition following the BCCI's decision.
A BCCI source told AFP it may separately sell the rights for the Australian series, starting on October 6, and call later for fresh bids for the next four years.
"Our immediate priority is the Australian series," the source said. "We may decide to produce the pictures ourselves or give it to someone to do it for us."
Zee, which had paid BCCI an advance of 20 million dollars soon after winning the rights last month, were furious at the developments.
"We had won the bid fair and square," Zee chairman Subhash Chandra told reporters.
"Since the petitioner ESPN-Star Sports withdrew the petition, the Court had no option but to pass no order.
"We won the rights and even paid part of the money, but the final contract could not be signed because of the court proceedings. We will take legal action."
The BCCI now has two weeks to arrange production of the four-Test series against the Australians starting in Bangalore on October 6.
BCCI lawyers had on Monday placed before the court letters from the International Cricket Council and Cricket Australia which stated that live video footage was imperative for the series to go ahead.
Zee had initially bid 260 million dollars for the deal. But when ESPN-Star upped its offer from 230 million dollars to 308 million dollars, Zee matched that amount and was granted the rights on the basis that it had initially been the highest bidder.
Zee's offer represented a six-fold increase on the 54 million dollars paid by public broadcaster Doordarshan for the past four years, and dwarfed even the Indian government's annual sports budget of 44 million dollars.