Former Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi claimed that he broke broadcasting rules during the first match of the tournament back in 2008. Kolkata Knight Riders took on Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the first ever IPL encounter and Modi said that he was willing to ‘break every rule in the book’ given the magnitude of the occasion. Modi claimed that he was worried about the reach that Sony Network had at that moment and decided to override their exclusive broadcasting rights. Instead, he instructed other broadcasters as well as news channels to go live with the match at the same time.
“Everything, everything was dependent on that one game. I broke every rule in the book that day. I signed the contract, an exclusive contract with Sony, but Sony didn’t have the reach. I said open the signal. Now it was available everywhere, right? And I told all the broadcasters who lost out, all of you, all news channels, go live,” Lalit told Michael Clarke during a recent podcast.
“Sony said ‘I’ll sue you’. I said ‘Sue me later, forget about it? Ok, we are going live now because you don’t have the reach’. I needed everybody to watch the first game. If the first game had flopped, I was dead.”
Earlier, Lalit Modi found himself in a major controversy once again after he revealed the video of Harbhajan Singh slapping S Sreesanth during IPL 2008. The ‘Slapgate’ row caused a huge stir at that time but Harbhajan heavily criticised Lalit Modi for revealing the video after such a long time.
“The way the video has been leaked, it’s wrong. It shouldn’t have happened. They might have a selfish motive behind it. Something that happened 18 years ago, people have forgotten, and they are reminding people about it,” Harbhajan told Instant Bollywood.
