What Made Subroto Roy Bid Goodbye to Indian Cricket?

Bangalore: For Subrato Roy, it’s not just business, rather an emotional issue as Sahara India Pariwar decides to bring an end to its 12-year-old alliance with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and he feels the board has forgotten the rules of fair play in business. “It was an emotional decision for us to start this sponsorship but our emotions were never appreciated and many genuine situations, were not given due consideration at all,” read a press release from Sahara.

For long now, Team India has been identified by its blue jersey with the Sahara logo and now as the business giant walks off from the cricketing field leaving the jersey of the official sponsor, it’s a huge blow for the cricket board who in turn is double hit by Sahara’s decision to give up its Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise, Sahara Pune Warriors.

This is about emotions. They (BCCI) were just declining everything we were suggesting. There has to be some give and take,” said Roy and the emotional decision came just as the BCCI President Srinivasan made it clear that he has nothing to do with it. Although Roy said the money is not the problem, but the future of the players is, it should be noted that there is some big time money involved too. Its emotions that matter after all because Roy decides to walk away leaving behind a sponsorship deal with the BCCI at $719,000 per match, the validity of which has nearly two more years to go (31 December 2013). Sahara has also decided to give up its IPL franchise, which the company had bought at a record price of $370 million (approximately Rs 1,700 crore), the highest bid in the history of IPL. And as he part ways with the board, he said, “We don’t ask for much but there has to be a give and take; there has to be mutual respect. This was an emotional connection from the start and now it’s gone.”