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A disappointed State Television Rupavahini has cancelled a lucrative five-year TV rights deal for local tournaments with Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), alleging that SLC did not keep their end of the bargain by failing to conduct the promised tournaments, a Rupavahini source said.

Rupavahini bought the telecast and sponsorship rights for the three Premier division tournaments from SLC for a whopping Rs. 10 million per year in a contract that was signed for a total of five years.

SLC granted Rupavahini the rights of Premier Division League tournament, Limited over tournament and the Twenty20 tournament under the contract signed last year during the reign of the Interim Committee headed by Jayantha Dharamadasa. They secured the rights over another competitive bid from Sirasa TV which had done a commendable job in covering the domestic tournaments, after securing rights the previous year.

Rupavahini however had decided last month to terminate the contract as the SLC had failed to conduct the promised number of tournaments as they did not play a Premier Division tournament.

“We had spent such a lot of money, so it is natural for us to expect a return. But SLC did not have the Twenty20 tournament for the Premier Division, through which we had expected to make a lot of money through advertising income” said a top Rupavahini official who wished anonymity.

“Instead they conducted another Twenty20 tournament and made a killing by finding other sponsors for it” he added.

SLC’s Marketing Manager Charith Senanayake however denied the Rupavahini allegation and said SLC released Rupavahini as they intimated to SLC that they did not have the money to honour the contract.

“They made a request for us to pull out of the contract as they did not have money. We could have said no and forced them to honour the agreement if we wanted to, but we let them go without taking such action, after mutually agreeing to end the contract” said Senanayake.

Senanayake refuted the claim of a failure to hold the Premier Division Twenty20 tournament. “They had stated that as a reason in the document their legal department had sent to SLC. But it is not the actual reason for the termination of the contract” said Senanayake adding that SLC indeed had a successful Twenty20 tournament at the Provincial level for which they secured different sponsors.

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