Just a day after the Supreme Court-appointed Lodha Committee suspended Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals for two years from the Indian Premier League, the Governing Council of Champions League T20 decided to scrap CL-T20 albeit for other reasons.
The Governing Council of Champions League T20 consists of representatives of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Cricket South Africa and Cricket Australia. The decision to discontinue the tournament was due to the limited fan following and traction that the tournament got since it was started in 2009. Touted as the richest club cricket tournament, with a total prize pool of $6 million with the winner’s earning pegged at about $2.5 million and the runner-up’s at $1.3 million, it did not attract the desired viewership. The BCCI has been planning to discontinue the tournament and look for alternatives.
Sources said that the IPL team owners as well as the official broadcaster were unhappy because of the lack of strong fan following, low TV ratings as well as poor sponsorship response.
As such, the 2015 CL-T20 scheduled for September-October will not go ahead, the official statement added.
Anurag Thakur, Honorary Secretary of the BCCI, said in a statement: “This decision was made after consultation with all our commercial partners and meeting the contractual obligations of all parties involved.”.