The Board of Control of Cricket in India says that it may see a massive erosion of $1 billion based on the valuations of the last year if they will have to cancel the tournament because of COVID-19. According to the reports of the global advisory, season 12 of IPL was valued at $6.8 billion in 2019. It is also believed that it will experience an erosion of $200-350 million if the BCCI goes in for a truncated tourney.
The advisory board has presented two scenarios related to the tournament. It says that they can choose to conduct the tournament in closed galleries with no audience to prevent the outspread of pandemic COVID-19. If they have to cancel the 13th session then they will not be able to gather any revenue from the gate sales and face complete washout of the 2020 season.
However, the final decision has not yet been taken by the board and they are expecting to start the tournament from April 15. Moreover, if the tournament gets cancelled Indian will not be the lone loser as there are dozens of matches cancelled all over the world that were larger cash-flowing matches.
The last complete shuttering of sports events was during the time of World War II when even the Olympics were called off. Overall the IPL ecosystem is believed to see huge value erosions of $250-300 million if the BCCI is to go for a truncated season this year. Moreover, if it gets cancelled the erosion will be much higher of about $700-1000 million. Several global sports events are shut down because of the pandemic. The sports leagues all over are postponed till April. There are chances of cancelling the Tokyo Olympics if the pandemic doesn’t subside.
