After the successful completion of the IPL 2020, which was held in the UAE behind closed doors, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is looking to expand the number of franchises in the Indian Premier League.
As per reports of the Times of India, the BCCI is planning to bring out a tender for the new franchise(s) soon after the Diwali week gets over. The news portal had also earlier reported in 2019 that the board was mulling the idea of adding two new franchises to the IPL after the 2020 edition.
But BCCI later arrived at the conclusion that only one franchise should be brought on board for now (for the 2021 edition) and the other from the 2022 season onwards.
"The tender is most likely to come after Diwali, once a decision is taken in this regard. And regardless of whether it's one franchise or two, if new teams come in then a mega auction cannot be avoided," sources said.
As reported earlier, the Adani Group, the Tatas, and the RPG-Sanjiv Goenka Group are keen to own a franchise in IPL. Leading banker Uday Kotak has also shown interest along with media entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala.
Apropos of what the BCCI decides, the existing eight franchises and other stakeholders have three major concerns:
1. The central revenue pool is unlikely to change until the 2023 edition and therefore, new teams coming in will result in the present revenue cycle getting diluted.
2. With the 2021 edition of the league slated to begin anytime between the last week of March and the first week of April, there's not enough time (just three-and-half months) to do a mega auction.
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3. If one new franchise is brought in, it will result in 60 matches going up to 76, in the present format. If two new franchises are brought in, the number of matches will go up to 90 and a major concern is that the IPL window is too short to adjust these games.
The IPL was last valued by Duff & Phelps to be in excess of US$6 billion and is one of the hottest properties in the sports world.
"The BCCI will come up with a media rights tender towards the end of 2021. Star's five-year IPL deal will end with the 2022 season and the board will look to maximize its broadcast revenue," said industry sources.
New players like Amazon and Facebook are also in the fray for digital rights in the ever-growing cricket market. They added that "BCCI should ideally bring out a tender for new franchises after the media rights tender because they'll get a higher value. In the middle of this pandemic, it's always a risky proposition".
(Times of India inputs)
