Bangladesh-India help Sri Lanka make 940 million profit
To celebrate the 70th year of the independence of Sri Lanka, the board hosted a tri-series with India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and named it Nidahas trophy. ‘Nidahas’ means freedom in Sinhalese and perfectly depicted the cause for which the tournament was played for.
In the end, it turned out to be the most successful tri-nation tournament the country ever hosted. With a profit of 940 million rupees ($14.2 million approx.), it was a highly successful tournament for the Lankans financially.
“This was the most successful Tri-nation cricket series ever held in Sri Lanka,” said SLC president Thilanga Sumathipala.
In terms of revenue, the tournament generated 1.38 billion rupees ($20.85 million) - from which, 1.26 billion rupees ($19 million) came from selling international media rights and 80 million rupees ($1.2 million) from ticket sales.
Not many expected the tournament to be this successful with the profit forecast prior to the tournament being only 195 million rupees ($3 million approx.). This means that the tournament made almost 5 times more profit than what was expected.
Even the matches turned out to be much more interesting than what was forecasted, which in turn made the tournament profitable. After Sri Lanka thrashed Bangladesh in their own backyard just days prior – and in all three formats – almost everyone expected the final to be between Sri Lanka and India.
In the end, however, Bangladesh played some fantastic and gritty cricket to trump the host side and dump them out of the tournament to play against India in the final. They might have lost the game in the ultimate ball of the game – thanks to the tempest of Dinesh Karthik – but it was the perfect exhibition of the kind of cricket that was played in the tournament.
