New Delhi: Millions have already been spent. More will be spent in the next few days. But who gets to show the matches of the
Indian Premier League (IPL), the world's most lucrative cricket event, or who gets to see them is still not clear.
The stand-off, with the IPL management on one side and media -- both print and electronic -- on the other, has not been resolved yet, though the IPL top brass says that all outstanding issues relating to the media have been sorted out.
The National Broadcasters Association (NBA), a group of broadcasters, is said to be holding meetings on how to deal with this issue and the dreaded word 'boycott' has figured often enough.
Agence France Presse (AFP) New Delhi bureau chief Barry Parker told IANS: "We have not seen any official version about IPL's media accreditation going online again. We have only seen IPL commissioner Lalit Modi's comments in the media. We are expecting a decision soon."
The Press Trust of India (PTI) management, which has been holding talks with
IPL officials, stated on Monday that all issues except one have been resolved.
PTI Executive Editor V. Chandrasekhar told IANS: "We are still in talks and there is only one sticking point, that is selling photographs to dedicated cricket websites. They have assured us that we will not have any other problem regarding other issues."
But a top IPL official said that the organisers have addressed all issues raised by the news agencies and websites, including those pertaining to the dedicated cricket web-sites.
Sources say some media outlets have gone to the extent of advising their reporters to "black out" IPL coverage. This could increase as the event nears and the franchisees are already worried, though it is not known whether any have spoken to the IPL on the issue.
Things are still not clear on how the non-rights holding media, primarily TV channels, will deal with the coverage, since Sony, the rights holders, are said to be demanding huge sums for even small durations of footage, sometimes as little as three to five minutes. Also things are unclear on how the channels can use archival footage.
The official said IPL had nothing to do with the channels' problem as they have to work it out with Sony. The right-holders seem to have agreed to the usage of their footage for seven minutes daily.
