Kathmandu, August 30

EPL Pvt Ltd signed the three-year agreement with AP1 Television as the official broadcast partner of the Everest Premier League slated to be held at the Tribhuvan University stadium in December.

EPL Founder and Managing Director Aamir Akhtar and AP1 TV Managing Director Laxmi Paudyal signed the Memorandum of Understanding amid a function today.

As per the agreement, AP1 TV will be the official broadcast partner of the EPL for three editions from 2017 to 2019, while the channel will provide the organisers of the tournament with Rs 500,000 in cash and Rs 500,000 in kind per year. The amount will be increased by 10 per cent every year.

Akhtar informed that participating six teams and the organiser will share the amount generated from selling the TV rights. Each side will get Rs 740,000. “Apart from that, AP1 TV will spend Rs 500,000 in promotional activities and broadcasting of the tournament,” said Akhtar, the former national cricket team member.

Akhtar said he was happy with EPL’s association with AP1 and hoped that the deal would contribute for the development of the sport in the country.

AP1 TV MD Paudyal said that the television agreed the agreement as the sport had a lot of potential. “We have got stars and huge fan following in cricket and the sport has done well in the last five or six years. If we push a little bit, we can make a drastic change in the standard of the game,” he said.

The winners of the EPL will get Rs 2.1 million, which will be the highest amount in domestic cricket tournaments. The National Sports Council had awarded two million rupees to the winners of the first Prime Minister Cup One-day National Men’s Cricket Tournament held in June at the TU Stadium.

A total of six city-based franchise teams — Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhairahawa, Biratnagar, Birgunj and Pokhara — will compete in the tournament which will be played under round robin format. Top four teams will make it to the playoffs.

Each team will have a 15-player squad for the tournament with 10 cricketers coming through auction. Similarly, each team will have a marquee player with a maximum of three foreign players, while the teams will organise a talent hunt programme in their respective cities to pick up one local player in the squad.

Akhtar informed that the auction will be organised after Dashain festival.