BCCI is small fry for IMG?

With the Indian Premier League (IPL) Governing Council having appointed BCCI president Shashank Manohar to negotiate the monetary dispute with International Management Group (IMG), it has given the top sports management firm a glimmer of hope to retain their status as IPL's logistics partners.

However, neither BCCI nor IPL figure in the list of clients which the company calls "some of the best known sports organizations." This, despite the IPL having been recognised as the sixth most valuable sports property in a recent survey.

The events mentioned are: All England Lawn Tennis Club (Wimbledon), English FA Premier Football League, International Rugby Board, Ladies Professional Golf Association, Major League Baseball, PGA of America, Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, Ryder Cup, United States Golf Association, United States Tennis Association.

"Since IPL has made its mark worldwide in such a short span of time, it shouldn't have been ignored in the list," a BCCI official told MiD DAY yesterday.

This is what appears on www.imgworld.com: "We worked with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to create the Indian Premier League (IPL). IMG researched the optimum sporting and commercial model for the IPL, and conducted the historic Franchise sale process which raised $724m."

About cricket's biggest money-spinner, the IMG website adds: "The IPL is the biggest sports and entertainment initiative ever introduced in India and one of the most financially successful sports concepts launched anywhere in the world in recent years. IPL is played under cricket's newest format Twenty20 which reduces match playing time to three hours, making it perfect for prime time television and live in-stadia audiences. In 2009 the second season of the IPL was moved to South Africa at very short notice, and IMG played a crucial role in relocating the event to a new continent."