WICB to earn $4.5 million from Caribbean Premier League

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will earn US$4.5 million each year from their deal with Verus International, the owners of the Caribbean Premier League, a WICB Director has announced. The WICB earnings will also include an annual licence fee of US$1.5 million, which takes inflation rates into account, Director Baldath Mahabir has stated.

“The West Indies Cricket Board was running the regional T20 tournament and was losing US$3 million a year because there were no sponsors,” said Mahabir.

“Now with this deal with the Caribbean Premier League we have our players playing good quality T20 cricket and the WICB don’t have to fork out the US$3 million to stage it”.

The Caribbean Premier League which has replaced the Regional T20 tournament will bowl off on July 30 and will have six teams coming from Trinidad &Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Guyana and St Lucia. Mahabir said it would have been difficult for the WICB to go the route of the Board of Control for Cricket in India by owning the tournament and having franchises.

“The WICB needed someone to bankroll this tournament because when you look at the economy in the region, it would have been difficult for the WICB to sell the franchises,” he said.

“You might have gotten by, from say Trinidad & Tobago but some of the other countries would have found it difficult to be part of it”.

Caribbean Premier League fixtures revealed over the weekend see each franchise playing seven matches, three at home, three away and one at a neutral venue. The semi-finals and final are carded for Trinidad & Tobago. -(CMC)