Over the weekend, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced that production rights for domestic events have been awarded to a consortium of SportzWorkz and Tower Sports.
The consortium won the production rights for the National T20 Cup, Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, and the Pakistan-Zimbabwe limited overs series after a request for proposal (RFP) process that involved PCB’s pre-qualified production partners.
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In an official statement, Director Commercial PCB, Babar Hamid, said that the board has full trust and confidence in the abilities of SportzWorkz and Tower Sports to deliver world-class production.
This is another milestone in our renewed vision of providing top-quality coverage of domestic cricket and Pakistan’s international home fixtures.
The statement added that Pakistan’s international home series and all major domestic tournaments will be broadcast live on PTV Sports.
Earlier this month, PCB had signed a three-year satellite broadcast deal with PTV Sports and cable distribution agreement with I-Media Communication Services. PCB is expected to earn more than $200 million through the deal with PTV Sports and I-Media.
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However, #PCBJawabDo has been trending on Twitter, with Twitterati claiming that PCB has awarded the production rights of its events to two Indian companies, SportzWorkz and Tower Sports, and revoked the broadcast rights deal it signed with PTV Sports and I-Media earlier this month.
It must be noted here that while SportzWorkz is an Indian company headquartered in New Delhi with an overseas office in Singapore, Tower Sports is the landing rights license holder for Ten Sports which is owned by Sony Corporation Japan.
Both companies had produced the Pakistan Super League (PSL) 5 earlier this year which came to a premature end due to the Coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Sadly, Twitterati have conflated production rights and broadcast rights.
Whereas, the PCB’s official statement has unequivocally stated the PTV Sports will broadcast all PCB events for the next three years under the recently signed deal while the consortium of SportzWorkz and Tower Sports has been awarded the production rights of the National T20 Cup, Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, and the Pakistan-Zimbabwe limited-overs series.
Let’s have a look at what confused Twitterati are saying.
PCB had a contract with PTV in front of PM IK in which PTV got the rights of National T20, Quaid e Azam trophy, and Pak-Zimbabwe series for 18 crores. But PCB breached the deal n gave 2 Indian based production houses "SportWorkz" and "TowerSports" why did PCB do this?#PCBJawabDo pic.twitter.com/wa1wSQROGg
— Ezzy Sheikh (@ezzysheikh) September 29, 2020
https://twitter.com/traminatooor1/status/1310905702093914115
https://twitter.com/beekaboo_/status/1310847882891755520
https://twitter.com/uzii_hashmi/status/1310902223040327681
https://twitter.com/ITheTaurus/status/1310845601760915456
PCB 🤝 Corruption
PCB & PTV signed contract for rights of National T20, Quaid e azam trophy & Pak Zimbabwe series for 18 crores, but then breached it because 'Sportzworkz' & 'Tower sports' offered 32 crores.
Why PCB? Why'd you break the contract?#PCBJawabDo pic.twitter.com/oKmwKIJN1P— Ayeshay (@champagne_lassi) September 29, 2020
All is not lost. Some are trying their best to instill some sense.
Broadcastinf rights hain ptv k pas bewaquf insan, her cheez main indian manjan na le aya karo.
Production rights are with tower and sportzworkz.
Sahi quality bhi chaiye lekin sahi company ko production rights bhi na milain.— Sohaib Chatri (@SohaibChatri) September 29, 2020
I love cricket