Mumbai: ESPN Star Sports has secured the ten-year commercial rights for the Champions League Twenty20 with a $900 million bid.

The deal gives ESPN STAR Sports the exclusive Global Commercial Rights for all the matches in the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 season, due to be held from December 3 to 10, 2008, and for all further Champions League Twenty20 seasons until 2017.

"We are absolutely delighted that after a fair and transparent process, we have what we believe to be the best commercial deal for the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 season and for cricket fans across the world.

The Commercial Rights were won by ESPN STAR Sports with a bid of USD $ 900 million. This makes the Champions League Twenty20 the highest value cricket tournament on a per game basis.

The tournament will feature two teams from Australia, India and South Africa as well as England Twenty20 domestic champions Middlesex and Pakistan's Sialkot.

The Australian, Indian and South African boards will jointly organise the Champions League and plan to expand the field to 12 teams next year.

2004: BSkyB and Channel Five pay £300m for telecasting England's home matches for four years starting 2006 - for the first time, live cricket coverage comes off terrestrial television and goes on satellite.

2006: Nimbus win the telecast rights to Indian cricket for four years after bidding US $612 million.

2006: The billion-dollar mark is breached: ESPN-Star shell out US$1.1 billion for a nine-year deal with the ICC.

2008: Sony-World Sports Group pay $1.16 billion to secure the rights to the Indian Premier League for ten years.

2008: ESPN-Star pays $900 million for the Champions League, making it the highest valued cricket tournament on a per-game basis.