Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) President Faruque Ahmed on Monday revealed that the board has earned about Tk12.25 crore from ticket sales from the recently concluded Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).
The amount is close to what the board had earned in the last 10 editions of BPL Faruque said.
"We have sold tickets worth around Tk. 12.25 crore in the entire BPL in this season," he said in a video message on Monday.
"So far, the tickets that the BCB has sold in the last 10 seasons are around Tk. 15 crore," he said.
Considering that, we have come close to that in one year. We have also signed a three-year agreement for selling ticket rights at Tk. 1 crore, which means almost Tk 13.25 crore was earned from this BPL."
Faruque said online ticketing system was the key behind that unbelievable response in ticket selling this time around.
"We had sold tickets through online this time, which is the reason behind that unbelievable response. Although we didn't make it full online system," he said, adding that in the first phase 35 percent and in the second phase 40 percent of tickets were sold through online platform.
The presence of spectators throughout the BPL in all three venues - Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet was remarkable, said Faruque, the first BCB president who was a former captain of the national team.
The sharing of BPL's dividends is a hot topic. Franchise owners have made this demand at various times. When Faruque took over as the board president last August, franchises also talked to him about this issue.
As he was not sure about the profit of BPL, Faruque didn't say anything clearly to the franchises in this regard.
But this time he said that the franchises will get a share of the money from ticket sales, since the BCB is now clear about the profit.
Faruque further said the BCB is mulling the change of schedule of the BPL, considering that Bangladesh's domestic T20 tournament coincides with the tournaments in Dubai and South Africa. It was the reason that Bangladesh didn't get enough quality foreign players in the past two/three seasons.
"We have started working on the upcoming BPL now. We have found a feasible time. Now there are many T20 tournaments in all countries, and our schedule conflicts with them. We can change the BPL schedule a little differently, so that we get some quality foreign players," he pointed out.
Despite some limitations, Faruque said the BPL was a success story as they projected.
"Overall it was a tournament to remember considering the fact that the spectators' presence, wicket's behaviour, ticket sales, audience participation and TV production was good," he said. —BSS
