Our Bureau
Mumbai
The recent podcast of the former Chairman of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Lalit Modi with former Australian captain Michael Clarke has been making waves all around with the revelations that he made. Modi revealed that for the first match of the tournament back in 2008 he broke all the rules of broadcasting.
The first encounter between the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders was a scintillating start to what then became the biggest cricket league in the world. Modi stated that for the success of the tournament the success of the first match was very important and he was willing to break every rule that there was after seeing the magnitude of the occasion.
He revealed that he had signed an exclusive contract with Sony but the broadcaster was lacking the reach. He then decided to override Sony’s rights and told all the news channels and broadcasters to go live with the match. Sony even stated that they are going to sue him but he didn’t care as he needed everyone to watch the game.
“Everything, everything was dependent on that one game. I broke every rule in the book that day. I signed the contract, an exclusive contract with Sony, but Sony didn’t have the reach. I said open the signal. Now it was available everywhere, right? And I told all the broadcasters who lost out, all of you, all news channels, go live,” Modi told Clarke in his podcast ‘Beyond 23’.
“Sony said ‘I’ll sue you’. I said ‘Sue me later, forget about it? Ok, we are going live now because you don’t have the reach’. I needed everybody to watch the first game. If the first game had flopped, I was dead,” he added.
