IMG-Reliance Ends Deal With PSL After Pulwama Attack

IMG-Reliance has dealt a big blow to Pakistan Super League and Pakistan Cricket Board after the Pulwama attack.

Pakistan continue to pay hefty price in the wake of the ghastly terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district.  The Government of India has already started taking the actions to make Pakistan pay for their cowardly attack.  On Saturday, the government hiked the customs duty on all goods imported from Pakistan to 200% with immediate effect, a day after it revoked the most favoured nation (MFN) status that it had given its neighbour in 1996. And well, Pakistan’s cricket is also in the firing line now.

On Sunday,  IMG-Reliance pulled out of its deal to produce television coverage of the Pakistan Super League worldwide. The Pakistan Cricket Board confirmed the news on Sunday,

“We have been informed by IMG Reliance that they will be unable to partner with us for the remaining HBL PSL 2019 and PCB has reserved all its rights. The PCB always had a contingency plan in place, and we are confident we will be in a position to announce the new partner on Monday after the completion of the formalities,” PCB’s Managing Director Wasim Khan said.

The PCB had sold the PSL broadcast rights to a consortium of Blitz Advertising and Techfront for approximately USD 36 million. This deal was set to run till the end of the 2022 season. Neither Blitz nor Techfront own a TV channel. As a result, they had resold the rights to others with the facility to broadcast cricket matches. Techfront owns a website named Cricketgateway which was streaming PSL matches online for the past two seasons. That website has stopped providing the coverage to India.

Prior to IMG-Reliance, DSport, which was broadcasting the game in India, had also stopped the coverage. In other show of protests, Cricket Club of India had covered the portrait of former Pakistan skipper Imran Khan in its restaurant. On Sunday, the PCA stadium in Mohali had removed the pictures of the Pakistani players. There are also calls of boycotting Pakistan in the upcoming ICC World Cup.