'Windies Board to earn $4.5 mn from CPL'

Port of Spain, May 15 (IANS/CMC)

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will earn $4.5 million each year from their deal with Verus International, the owners of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), a WICB Director has announced.

The WICB earnings will also include an annual licence fee of $1.5 million which takes inflation rates into account, director Baldath Mahabir has stated.

“The West Indies Cricket Board was running the regional T20 tournament and was losing $3 million a year because there were no sponsors,” said Mahabir Tuesday.

“Now with this deal with the CPL we have our players playing good quality T20 cricket and the WICB don’t have to fork out the $3 million to stage it.”

The CPL which has replaced the regional T20 tournament will bowl off July 30 and will have six teams coming from T&T, Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Guyana and St Lucia.

Mahabir said it would have been difficult for the WICB to go the route of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) by owning the tournament and having franchises.

“The WICB needed someone to bankroll this tournament because when you look at the economy in the region, it would have been different for the WICB to sell the franchises,” he said.

“You might have gotten buy in from say Trinidad and Tobago but some of the other countries would have found it difficult to be part of it.”

CPL fixtures revealed over the weekend see each franchise playing seven matches, three at home, three away and one at a neutral venue.

The semi-finals and finals are carded for Trinidad and Tobago.