BCCI fail to renew Lalit Modi-owned domain

BCCI’s website has been down for the most part on Sunday.

World’s richest cricket board BCCI failed to renew its official domain (bcci.tv) and owing to that, the website has been down since Sunday morning, Indian Standard Time. At the time of writing, the domain had been down for nearly 12 hours. With the website not renewed, the domain registrars Register.com and Namejet.com have put the website up for public bidding. However, BCCI can still reclaim the domain by extending their ownership of the much-prized property.

With the website not renewed, it goes on for public bidding. At the time of writing, the domain received seven bids with the highest bid of $270. The minimum bid for the domain stands at $69.

BCCI earns $405 million from the ICC and recently signed a lucrative TV rights deal with Star Sports for Rs 16,347.5 crore or $2.55 billion. For the conglomerate to not put their virtual property up for renewal comes as a major embarrassment in this day and age. To make things even more embarrassing for the board, the website is owned by former IPL Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi. BCCI and Modi estranged ties in 2010 after the former Rajasthan Cricket Association chief was suspended on 22 charges. He was subsequently banned for life in 2013.

As per the website’s registration details, the registrant is Lalit Modi with the organisation being Modi Enterprises (owned by Modi himself). The administrative information also points to Modi Entertainment as the organisation associated with the domain.

Incidentally, the official website for the IPL, iplt20 .com, was also registered to Lalit Modi before its ownership was transferred and the information pertaining to it hidden from public.