The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have announced the two new franchises for the Indian Premier League (IPL) following an open auction in Dubai on Monday . There were nine bidders including two from foreign countries.
While RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group bagged Lucknow IPL team for Rs 7090 crore, Private Equity firm CVC Capital have won the bid for Ahmedabad. CVC Capital paid around Rs 5600 crore for the Ahmedabad franchise.
In a statement, the Indian cricket board said, “BCCI is pleased to announce the following successful bidders (subject to definitive documentation and other formalities being completed):
- RPSG Ventures Ltd. – Lucknow (for INR 7090 crores)
- Irelia Company Pte Ltd. (CVC Capital Partners) – Ahmedabad (for INR 5625 crores)
The new franchises will participate in IPL from 2022 season onwards subject to the bidders completing the post-bid formalities as specified in the ITT document.”
“The IPL 2022 season will comprise ten teams and will have 74 matches, wherein each team will play 7 home and 7 away matches,” it added.
After the completion of bidding, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly welcomed two new teams and said it will bring more players from the domestic circuit.
“It is heartening to see the inclusion of two new teams at such a high valuation, and it reiterates the cricketing and financial strength of our cricket ecosystem. True to IPL’s motto of ‘Where Talent Meets Opportunity’, the inclusion of two new teams will bring more domestic cricketers from our country to the global stage,” said Ganguly.
“The ITT process included two interested bidders from outside of India, which strongly emphasises the global appeal of the IPL as a sports property. The IPL is proving to be a wonderful instrument in globalising the game of cricket. I am keenly looking forward to IPL 2022.”
According to media reports, with ten teams instead of eight from 2022 and matches going up from 60 to 74 every year, there has been huge interest for the broadcasting rights – Reliance through Viacom 18, Amazon Prime, an unknown global player apart from Disney+Hotstar and Sony Pictures Network are expected to be the serious bidders.
So now, BCCI is likely to replicate the model that was used in IPL 2011, which also featured 10 franchises, and had teams split into two groups. During the league stage, each team played seven home and seven away games. Each team played the other four in their group both home and away (eight matches), four of the teams in the other group once each (four matches, either home or away), and the remaining team in the other group twice, both home and away.
