MUMBAI: Sahara India Pariwar, a major business conglomerate and the owner of IPL team Pune Warriors, has taken for an undisclosed amount the Lucknow franchise of the ?Hockey India League? (HIL), the franchise-based Hockey league started by Hockey India.

Hockey India, the official body of the sport in India, is launching its own franchise-based league to rival World Series Hockey which is co-promoted by Indian Hockey Federation and Harish Thawani?s Nimbus Sport.

Sahara India chairman Subrata Roy Sahara said, ?By taking up this franchise we are sure that fresh talent will be identified at city and regional level, who in turn will bring laurels to our beloved nation. We are also hopeful, that following our efforts to encourage Hockey, other corporate entities will also come forward to support this league which will eventually benefit the game and its exponents."

The HIL will initially comprise six teams who will play each other on home and away basis. The league is expected to debut in January next year with the International Hockey Federation giving it a one month window from 1-30 January to ensure the participation of top foreign players.

The HIL will have six city-based teams selected from a pool of 12 cities that have infrastructure and facilities to host a match.

The six teams can have a maximum of 24 players in their squad with six Indian and foreign marquee players each. HI has fixed the salary cap at Rs 30 million with players divided into four slabs selected through IPL style auction in September.

Hockey India Secretary General Narendra Batra said, ?I am grateful to ?Saharasri? and Sahara India Pariwar, for again coming forward in support of Hockey. The Group has always come forward and supported the sport of hockey at all times by providing it the much needed support.?

Apart from being sponsor to the Indian Hockey Team, Sahara India Pariwar had also joined hands with Federation Internationale De Hockey (FIH) in 2004, the World?s apex Body for Hockey, and became the fourth Global Partner of the Federation for a period of three years.

HI will work with its exclusive marketing partner Twenty First Century Media to launch the league. TCM is responsible for handling sponsorship, media rights and getting franchises on board for the league.

Earlier, Sahara had renewed its sponsorship deal with HI forking out Rs 400 million over a five-year period.

MUMBAI: Sports broadcaster Ten Sports, which holds the rights to international cricket played in Pakistan, has evinced interest in televising Pakistan Cricket Board?s yet-to-be launched Twenty20 franchise based league.

Harish Thawani-promoted Nimbus Sport is also reported to have given a presentation to the PCB chairman and other senior officials last week on the Twenty20 league.

According to reports, Nimbus is interested in just organising the league for a fee but has not shown interest in procuring rights for the event.

Besides, Ten and Nimbus another international sports marketing agency is believed to have shown interest on the league.

"At the presentations most of those people who gave presentations made it clear that finances needed to be generated from the Indian and other markets to sustain such a major league including the franchises," newswire PTI quotes a saource as saying.

The PCB is hoping to get a price of around $4 to 4.5 million for a franchise which is expected to be held in October.

"Basically they also see October as the ideal time to launch the PPL as the ICC has kept a window open for the Champions League tournament as well and foreign players could be available as well," the source said.

"The biggest issue for the PCB is not just finances for the event but also security issues as they are keen to ensure the league launches with the participation of foreign players," the source added.

MUMBAI: For founder-promoter Harish Thawani, fresh trouble is brewing. TheOneAlliance, the brand of the joint venture company between Multi Screen Media (MSM) and Discovery, has terminated the distribution contract of Neo Sports Broadcast?s two sports channels.

Already weakened by the scrapping of BCCI?s rights to India cricket, Neo Sports Broadcast will suffer a huge revenue loss. Sources familiar with the deal said Sony Entertainment Television India (now called MSM) had agreed to pay a minimum guarantee of Rs 2.7 billion net for the three-year distribution of Neo Cricket and Neo Sports.In 2009, Nimbus had renewed through to 2014 its contract with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for Rs 20 billion. After the exit of Colors and the other Viacome18 channels MTV, Vh1 and Nick in mid-2010, Sony found an opportunity and signed up Neo Sports Broadcast?s channels.

For Neo Sports Broadcast, which was tossed out by Star India on review of the high price it had agreed to pay for distribution of the two channels, TheOneAlliance?s decision to end the contract has come as a huge setback. Neo had set up its own distribution team but could not kick in substantial pay revenues. TheOneAlliance came as a blessing as the MG (minimum guarantee) price was high and Neo also kept the digital part of the distribution business.

"We terminated the contract with Neo Broadcast on 3 January. We had specifically mentioned in the contract that the deal would be valid if Neo had the BCCI rights. We have communicated to them about the scrapping of the contract," MSM Discovery president Rajesh Kaul told Indiantelevision.com, without disclosing the size of the contract.

Neo Sports Broadcast COO Prasanna Krishnan declined to comment on the issue.

The BCCI cancelled the deal after Nimbus repeatedly defaulted on payments. India?s cricket board, which has time till mid this year when India plays a home series, is expected to come out with fresh tenders for the remaining tenure of the contract. Nimbus, however, is saved by the courts so far as the BCCI has not been able to encash the Rs 20 billion bank guarantee.

The termination of the contracts with BCCI and TheOneAlliance means that Neo will find bargaining hard if it wants to sell its broadcasting buiness. Indication is that Sony wouldn?t weigh the option of buying out Neo.

"After deciding to end the distribution contract, it is highly unlikely that Sony will look at buying Neo. The Times of India Group may be a contender. Or even Mukesh Ambani via Network18. These are entities who could be looking at entering the sports broadcasting market. But the big debate could be valuation," said a media analyst.

Nimbus Communications had filed, late 2010, the draft offer document with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to raise Rs 3.50 billion via an initial public offering (IPO). Out of the issue proceedings, the company intended to use Rs 1.29 billion for launching of new channels (Neo Cinema and Neo Zindagi) and Rs 132.45 million towards the geographic expansion of Neo Cricket. It also stated that it would use Rs 1.16 billion to obtain bank guarantee and provide security deposit for sports rights. It further intended to use Rs 349.87 million and Rs 500 million of the net issue proceedings for upgradation of Neo infrastructure and acquisition of new broadcasting rights respectively.

For the fiscal ended 31 March 2010, Nimbus Communications had posted an income of Rs 7.33 billion from sales and services, while net loss stood at Rs 1.42 billion. As of March 2010, Nimbus had accumulated loss of Rs 4.98 billion.

"Nimbus is in a tight corner so far as its proposed IPO goes. The stock market has tumbled and it is no season for fresh IPOs," said an analyst at a local broking firm.

So how will the exit of Neo impact MSM? MSM?s gameplan could be to bid aggressively for the BCCI rights and launch a sports channel with the lucrative Indian Premium League (IPL) forming the fulcrum. They already have rights to New Zealand Cricket, FA Cup and NBA.

Some multi-system operators (MSOs) said on condition of anonymity that the payout to TheOneAlliance would fall a bit as they would be left without the sports channels. "But they would be better off as the MG they were paying to Neo was on the higher side. Without the BCCI rights, it doesn?t make sense for them to continue. They will save on the payout while incurring a smaller loss in revenues," said the chief executive of a leading MSO.

Counters Kaul. "All our channels are doing exceedingly well. And with the impending IPL in April-May, the strength of our bouquet will not be impacted with the Neo exit."

MSM will have time to stitch together a strategy with or without a sports channel as the IPL telecast rights will be a big driver for subscription revenues till May-end. "They can get the BCCI rights and launch a sports channel. Alternately, they can add more channels and strengthen their third bouquet," said a media analyst.

(With inputs from ASHWIN PINTO)