New Delhi: Three years back, few would have predicted that the Indian Premier League would be this big a business entity. In fact, those in the business itself have been taken by surprise by the extent of the IPL's success and its current estimated value.
No matter what the outcome of the ongoing controversy, IPL is a business idea that's changed the way money is made in game of cricket. From an initial target of making Rs 2,000 crore, the Indian Premier League hopes to earn a whopping Rs 18,000 crore by the end of 2010.
Technically, the IPL is an arm of the BCCI, run by an IPL governing council, stacked heavily with BCCI heavyweights and leading former cricketers. But on the ground it soon became clear the man calling the shots was IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, now credited for giving us all the phenomenon of cricketainment.
Obviously, the idea sold immediately and in January 2008, 8 teams were up for grabs. Though the base price was Rs 250 crore, Mukesh Ambani bid Rs 448 crore for the Mumbai Indians. Vijay Mallya bid Rs 446 crore for Bangalore. When the bidding ended, the IPL was richer by Rs 2,895 crore.
And it was not just the IPL or the big business houses who benefited from the auction. The players too were put for auction. And once again, the figures were staggering. The top bid came for Indian captain M S Dhoni who got close to Rs 6 crore followed by Andrew Symonds at Rs 5.4 crore. Iconic players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh, who the IPL thought were too valuable to be put for bidding, picked up 15 percent more than the highest paid players of their teams.
After two successful seasons, in 2010, the IPL decided to add two more teams in the basket. These two new teams - Kochi and Pune earned IPL another Rs 3,235 crore - way in excess of the money paid by all 8 franchisees combined just two years back.
With that kind of money riding on this extravagance - even the exit of its Czar Lalit Modi might not hit brand IPL.
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