MUMBAI: Indian Premier League chairman
Lalit Modi on Thursday spelt out the reasons for the cash-awash League’s
stand-off with television news channels and major news agencies who are
boycotting the third season of the T20 event starting on March 12.

“We have no issues relating to the news coverage and have come to an
agreement on this with the news channels. The area of disagreement is over the
usage of IPL footage in post-match packages whose rights are with our broadcast
partner (Sony),” he said at a news conference today.

“As far as news
agencies are concerned the conditions are that they cannot sell these photos
commercially or give them to cricket-related websites (even though they are
their subscribers),” he said.

“There have been many instances in the
past when these photos were used for commercial purposes. You cannot use them to
sell shampoo,” Modi declared.

The IPL chief claimed these
restrictions on usage of video footage and still images by non-rights holders
were nothing new in international sports events and existed in the Olympic
Games, World Cups and major leagues like NBA.

“We have taken these
line by line, improved on each and every aspect and made our guidelines more
friendly,” Modi asserted.