Byju's wants to exit as jersey sponsor of Indian team.
On the other hand, jersey sponsors Byju’s want out of their deal and require the BCCI to encash a bank guarantee worth an estimated Rs 140 crore to honor the current agreement.
The BCCI top brass deliberated on the two subjects for more than an hour in the emergent virtual meeting of the Apex Council on Monday.
Earlier in June, Byju's extended its jersey sponsorship agreement with the BCCI until November 2023 for an estimated USD 35 million.
But then in November, Byju's communicated to the BCCI that it wants to exit as the jersey sponsor of the Indian cricket team but the board asked the edtech company to continue until at least March 2023.
Byju's, which was one of the sponsors of the FIFA World Cup, plans to lay off around 2500 of its 50,000 workforces by March in its aim to become profitable.
While approximately Rs 140 crore will be paid to the BCCI through bank guarantee, the remaining, around Rs 160 crore, will be paid via installments.
Meanwhile, Star India, which had paid Rs 6138.1 for India's international and domestic cricket rights for the 2018-2023 period, has asked for an approximate Rs 130 crore discount in the existing deal.
This is due to some matches in the deal period having to be rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Only Byju's and Star India's issues were discussed in the meeting but that also took well over an hour. It was a serious matter involving millions of dollars so naturally, it took time. The issue was discussed at length but the board is yet to take a final call on it," a BCCI source told PTI.
This development comes at a time when the BCCI is preparing to sell media rights for the next five-year cycle after the current deal expires in March. BCCI is expecting another windfall given that the IPL media rights fetched a staggering Rs 48390 crores.
(PTI inputs)