What in the world happened with the PSL media rights bid?
The bidding table drama between Geo and ARY has spilled out into a battle being waged in the news media By Abdullah Niazi
O
n the 23rd of December, Geo and ARY found themselves sitting across a table with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in the middle. A tense struggle was underway between both sides to get the media rights to the next two editions of the wildly popular Pakistan Super League (PSL) – the PCB’s most prized product worth an estimated $300 million. Both sides had everything to play for. Geo’s sports channel Geo Super has been in broadcasting wilderness for years now, finding itself unable to capture media rights for cricket series and tournaments. Meanwhile ARY’s freshly launched high-definition sports channel, A-Sports, was looking to make it big and capitalise after a successful broadcasting run with the recently concluded ICC T20 World Cup.
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Normally, it would have been a simple matter of which side made the bigger bid, except on this occasion, ARY came to the table with a card up their sleeve – Pakistan Television (PTV). ARY did not come to the bidding table on their own, but rather came as part of a consortium between itself and PTV Sports. This has since become a bitter bone of contention. The result of the bid is currently public knowledge. Geo Sports lost out to the consortium of PTV and ARY, which secured the media rights for the PSL from 2022-23 at a price of nearly Rs 4.5 billion. In the aftermath, Geo Sports has, backed by the entire Jang group, cried foul and claimed that the consortium between ARY and PTV was illegal and promoted unfair practises. What went down at the bidding table, and does Geo have a case? Geo is currently pointing towards a judgement of the LHC from 2011 claiming PTV Sports did not follow fair practice as a state run broadcaster. In response,
the PCB has launched a detailed statement and PTV Sports director, Dr Nauman Niaz, has told Profit that the channel did approach other parties to form a consortium and got the best offer from A-Sports and went with it. With Geo not backing down from its claims, it is worth looking at what went down on the bidding table, and whether or not there has been any foul play.
What happened at the bid
T
he bidding process itself is always tense. Put in two old rivals in the mix and the stakes are bound to flare. On the 1st of December, the PCB made a public tender announcement inviting bids for PSL TV Broadcast media rights for 20222023. By the 23rd of December, two different financial and technical proposals were received by the board. One was from Geo, and the other
