IPL website on April 7, BCCI portal in July

CHENNAI, March 26: The multi-million dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) will launch its website next month while BCCI's much awaited portal will see the light of the day in July this year. IPL will launch its website on April 7, to be run by a North America-based company which will also develop a portal for the BCCI.
"BCCI/IPL has negotiated a contract with a North American based company to run and operate its portals and the minimum guarantee has been negotiated at $50 million over the next 10 years," IPL sources said. "There will be further revenue share of 50-50 from the first dollar earned by the company. The IPL portal will be launched on April 7 and the BCCI portal towards July this year," the sources added. Meanwhile, BCCI's Working Committee meeting has also decided that the board and IPL will have a 50-50 share with Bangalore franchisee United Breweries Group of the cost of the grand opening ceremony in Chinnaswamy Stadium on April 18. The meeting has also approved ITC Welcome Group hotels in the eight cities where the IPL matches are to be held as official hotels for three years and Kingfisher Airlines as official airline for the same number of years. The Working Committee also decided to hire Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri as star commentators for the IPL and approved and earlier decision to award the first year of production of IPL matches to IMG.