It comes as no surprise that business entities from across the globe are looking at the IPL and potential business prospects to get involved with the league. With the tournament growing so much in the last few years, it has become a new chapter in Cricket business, one like never before, and paved way for plenty such leagues across the globe.
With the Premier League governing council about to welcome two new teams into the fray, they opened the tender for two new franchises and potential business suitors. It attracted rapid interest from not just the big names in the Indian market like the Adani Group and Jindal Steel, but also some well-recognized business ventures from outside of India, most notably, the Lancer Capital.
Lancer’s principal Avram Glazer is well known in the footballing fraternity as a part-owner of Manchester United alongside his other family members. The Glazer family is associated with two major sporting giants already, with United in football and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in American football.
The other interested parties include RPSG, the business conglomerate owned by Sanjeev Goenka, who previously was involved with the IPL when Rising Pune Supergiant had taken over for two years.
Torrent Pharma, Aurobindo Pharma, Hindustan Times Media, Kotak Group, CVC Partners, and some other private equity firms and consortiums. BCCI opened invitation for firms with an annual turnover of INR 3000 Crore, and have set a base price for each team of INR 2,000 Crore. In case of a consortium, each of the involved parties in the consortium must show an annual turnover of INR 2,500 Crore.
The sheer volume of money that will be floating around is bound to attract world media, and clearly, there are more than just the 22 registered interested parties who had their eyes on this development.
Back in the day, when Sahara Adventure Sports invested INR 1,700 Crore to buy Pune Warriors India, people took notice of it with dropped jaws but as it stands, the base price of the new teams is set at a higher price than that.
BCCI is hopeful of getting a bid around INR 7,000 to 10,000 Crore for each team. Each interested parties will be allowed to bid for more than 2 cities, but eventually will be allowed to invest only in one of them.
The six involved cities will be Ahmedabad, Cuttack, Dharamshala, Guwahati, Lucknow, and Indore. The BCCI this time, did not open the opportunities for states that already have an IPL representation.
Ahmedabad is considered to be the hot cake among the cities, with Lucknow being the second favorite. With the Narendra Modi International Stadium announcing itself as the world’s biggest cricket stadium, it comes as no surprise that the BCCI wants to attach an IPL team to the ground to ensure regular cricket is player in the city.
Lucknow, which belongs to the most populous state in this country, has produced some brilliant cricketers over the years and currently being touted as a massive favorite to win a bid. The potential suitors will also take note of the incredible Ekana Stadium, named after former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which can hold a maximum capacity of 50,000, making it one of the biggest in India.
The bids were originally supposed to open on October 17, but with the number of interested parties growing in number, the date was changed twice by BCCI. It will now be held on October 25 in Dubai.
As reported by ESPN Cricinfo, once the technical evaluation of the bids are done, the BCCI will be announcing the new franchises and owners on the same day or next day.
