The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) maybe the richest cricket board on the planet, but they sure aren’t the sharpest. On 4th February, 2018, their official website – bcci.tv, went offline. This happened due to non-renewal of the domain name with domain registrars Register.com and Namejet.com, who have now put up the site name for public bidding.
At the time of report by the Indian Express, The domain received seven bids with the highest bid of $270. The minimum bid for the domain stands at $69. BCCI earns $405 million from the ICC and recently signed a lucrative TV rights deal with Star Sports for Rs 16,347.5 crore or $2.55 billion. However, forgetting to renew their virtual property rights has become an embarrassment for the richest board in the world.
What makes it much more embarrassing for BCCI is that the website domain name is owned by its former golden child Lalit Modi. BCCI had Modi banned in 2013, after he was found guilty on 22 charges in 2010 and suspended from his role as IPL chairman.
The website’s registration details show that the registrant is Lalit Modi with the organization being Modi Enterprises (owned by Modi himself). The official website for the IPL, iplt20.com, was also registered to Lalit Modi. However the ownership was transferred and its details have been hidden from public ever since.
