Although DD has come out with the novelty of packaging these events in a unique manner to market them better, DD officials are not talking much about the initiative. ``The events are being marketed in-house by DD's Commercial and Marketing divisions in Delhi and Mumbai,'' according to a DD Sports official. However, cricket is an exception, which is being marketed by Buddha Films for DD. As per the deal for the BCCI (Board for Cricket Control in India) matches, Buddha Films is to give a guaranteed amount to DD for a four-and-a-half-year contract. On how much DD is expected to garner from the `April Mania', the DD official says: ``It is not possible at the moment to comment about the revenues to be generated by marketing of these events.'' However, the official indicates the willingness of DD to market the events by stating that ``cross channel promotion of all the major events is being done on DD-I, DD-II, and all the regional channels''.

As to how much DD has paid for the exclusive telecast rights of these events, the official again is evasive about sharing figures, explaining that the deals are confidential in nature. The official says: ``Matters like rights fee etc, form a part of the contract with the rights holder and are governed by a confidentiality clause. Therefore, we are not at liberty to disclose this.'' However, recently the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Ms Sushma Swaraj, had put the TV telecast rights fees in the public domain. The minister furnished the details about the rights fees to the Rajya Sabha in reply to a question.

According to the details of the deals between DD and various sports organisations, DD has paid/to pay Rs 46 crore per annum to BCCI for all international matches for five years from 1999 onwards. Similarly, DD has paid/is to pay Rs 8.5 crore for 2000-2001 and Rs 10 crore for 2001-2002 to All-India Football Federation for all international matches played in India. The rights fee for the World Group Davis Cup Matches is Rs 20 lakh and for the Davis Cup Zonal matches Rs 10 lakh for five years beginning January 1999. For acquiring TV rights for the hockey matches, DD has been paying Rs 5 lakh per international match, Rs 5 lakh again for national finals and Rs 1.25 lakh for national semi-finals to the Indian Hockey Federation. The question now is: will branding the monthly sports packages, help recover these costs?