Sahara's Idea behind sponsorship

New Delhi: The Marketing Committee of BCCI formally approved Sahara as the official team sponsors for the next four years on Tuesday, and it has emerged that the bidding race was closer than it seemed earlier.

Sahara had clinched the sponsorship rights through its venture Air Sahara for Rs 313.3 crore, and this amount could go up to Rs 415 crore as and when 50 days more of international cricket, which were not included at the time of bids, is confirmed.

Idea Cellular was the second highest bidder at Rs 286 crore for the four-year period from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2009.

But Idea had offered double the money of Sahara for the Tests, Rs 176 crore as against the winner's offering of Rs 84 crore.

Sahara, however, scored in the one-day segment, offering Rs 229.801 crore whereas the telecom major's bid was less than half that amount at Rs 110.135 crore.

It is reliably learnt that Idea had bid based on some ingenious mathematics instead of the traditional way of putting more money on the instant version of the game.

They had distributed their money based on the number of matches to be played in the four year period -- 47 Tests and 115 ODIs.

BCCI Vice-President and Marketing Committee member Lalit Modi said the logo to be displayed on the players' shirts will be decided by Sahara.

The team sponsorship entitles Sahara to display their logo on the chest and leading arm of the players' shirts.

Seven limited overs tournaments, including two Asian Cups (2006 and 2008) and Afro-Asia Cups (2006 and 2007), a tri-series in Sri Lanka (2006), an ICC 20/20 event (2007) and an ICC Super Championships (2009) were not taken into account while tabulating the bids.

Eleven companies had bought the tender and six of them qualified. Videocon had submitted the bid but was disqualified because they did not have the complete documentation by the deadline.

Hero Honda pulled out at the last minute. The sponsorship rights for displaying logos on non-leading arm and kits will be finalised on December 23 in Mumbai.

Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Pantaloon, Slazenger and Sahara are the bidders for the above rights.