The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as
TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's
T20 franchise cricket
league of
India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The league was founded by the
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2007.
Brijesh Patel
Brijesh Patel (born 24 November 1952) is the incumbent chairman of Indian Premier League and former cricketer who played for the Indian national cricket team as a right-handed batsman from 1974 until 1979.
Biography
Patel grew up in ...
is the incumbent chairman of IPL. It is usually held annually in
summer
Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, wit ...
across India between March to May and has an exclusive window in the
ICC Future Tours Programme.
The IPL is the most-attended cricket league in the world and in 2014 was ranked sixth by average attendance among all sports leagues. In 2010, the IPL became the first sporting event in the world to be broadcast live on
YouTube. The brand value of the IPL in 2022 was . According to BCCI, the 2015 IPL season contributed to the
GDP of the
Indian economy.
So far there have been
fifteen seasons of the IPL tournament. The current IPL title holder franchise is
Gujarat Titans, winning the
2022 season and their first season.
History
Background
The
Indian Cricket League (ICL) was founded in 2007, with funding provided by
Zee Entertainment Enterprises. The ICL was not recognised by the
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) or the
International Cricket Council (ICC) and the BCCI were not pleased with its committee members joining the ICL executive board. To prevent players from joining the ICL, the BCCI increased the prize money in their own domestic tournaments and also imposed lifetime bans on players joining the ICL, which was considered a rebel league by the board.
Foundation
On 13 September 2007, on the back of India's victory at the
2007 T20 World Cup
The 2007 ICC World Twenty20 was the inaugural Twenty20 International cricket world championship, contested in South Africa from 11 to 24 September 2007. Twelve teams took part in the thirteen-day tournament—the ten Test-playing nations and the ...
,
BCCI announced a franchise-based
Twenty20 cricket competition called Indian Premier League. The first season was slated to start in April 2008, in a "high-profile ceremony" in
New Delhi. BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi, who spearheaded the IPL effort, spelled out the details of the tournament including its format, the prize money, franchise revenue system and squad composition rules. It was also revealed that the IPL would be run by a seven-man governing council composed of former India players and BCCI officials and that the top two teams of the IPL would qualify for that year's
Champions League Twenty20. Modi also clarified that they had been working on the idea for two years and that the IPL was not started as a "''knee-jerk reaction''" to the ICL.
The league's format was similar to that of the
Premier League of England and the
NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
in the United States.
In order to decide the owners for the new league, an
auction was held on 24 January 2008 with the total base prices of the franchises costing around $400 million.
At the end of the auction, the winning bidders were announced, as well as the cities the teams would be based in:
Bangalore,
Chennai,
Delhi,
Hyderabad,
Jaipur,
Kolkata,
Mohali
Mohali, officially known as Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, is a planned city in the Mohali district in Punjab (India), Punjab, India, which is an administrative and a commercial hub lying south-west of Chandigarh. It is the headquarters of the Moh ...
, and
Mumbai.
In the end, the franchises were all sold for a total of $723.59 million. The Indian Cricket League soon folded in 2008.
Players of Pakistan are not allowed to take part in the league since the
2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks
The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11, pronounced "twenty six eleven") were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist organisation from Pakistan, ...
, due to the involvement of Pakistan in that attack, 166 people lost their lives and 238 were gravely injured. The odious attack widespread angered many Indians, resulting in a total ban of
Pakistani players in the IPL.
Expansions and terminations
On 21 March 2010, two new franchises –
Pune Warriors India and
Kochi Tuskers Kerala – joined the league before the fourth season in 2011.
Sahara Adventure Sports Group bought the
Pune franchise for $370 million while
Rendezvous Sports World
Rendezvous Sports World Private Limited (RSW) was a cricket franchise in the Indian Premier League which had 10% of equity on Kochi IPL Team. Rendezvous Sports World Limited is a consortium made up of multiple companies. It had made the winning bi ...
bought the
Kochi franchise for $333.3 million.
However, one year later, on 11 November 2011, it was announced that the
Kochi Tuskers Kerala side would be terminated following the side breaching the BCCI's terms of conditions.
Then, on 14 September 2012, following the team not being able to find new owners, the BCCI announced that the
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
champions, the
Deccan Chargers, would be terminated. The next month, on 25 October, an auction was held to see who would be the owner of the replacement franchise, with
Sun TV Network winning the bid for the
Hyderabad franchise. The team would be named
Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Pune Warriors India withdrew from the IPL on 21 May 2013 over financial differences with the BCCI. The franchise was officially terminated by the BCCI, on 26 October 2013, on account of the franchise failing to provide the necessary bank guarantee.
On 14 June 2015, it was announced that two-time champions,
Chennai Super Kings, and the
inaugural season champions,
Rajasthan Royals, would be suspended for two seasons following their role in a spot-fixing and betting scandal. Then, on 8 December 2015, following an auction, it was revealed that Pune and
Rajkot
Rajkot () is the fourth-largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat after Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Surat, and is in the centre of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Rajkot is the 35th-largest metropolitan area in India, with a population of ...
would replace Chennai and Rajasthan for two seasons. The two teams were the
Rising Pune Supergiant and the
Gujarat Lions.
The venue for the
2020 season was moved due to the
COVID-19 pandemic and games were played in the
United Arab Emirates.
In August 2021, the BCCI announced that two new franchises would join the league starting from the
2022 season. It was also announced that the franchises would be based in two of the six cities shortlisted by the BCCI;
Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per t ...
,
Lucknow,
Cuttack,
Guwahati,
Ranchi
Ranchi (, ) is the capital of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Odisha, western West Bengal and the eastern area ...
and
Dharamshala. In a closed bidding held on 25 October,
RPSG Group and
CVC Capital won bids for the two teams. RPSG paid for Lucknow, whereas CVC won Ahmedabad for . The teams were subsequently named
Lucknow Super Giants and
Gujarat Titans.
Administration
IPL's headquarter is situated inside
Cricket centre at the
Wankhede Stadium in
Churchgate
Churchgate (Marathi pronunciation: ͡ʃəɾt͡ʃɡeːʈ is an area in South Mumbai. During the eighteenth and up to the mid-19th century, Mumbai was a walled city. The city walls had three gates, and Churchgate, named after St. Thomas Cathe ...
, Mumbai. The IPL
Governing Council
A personal ordinariate for former Anglicanism, Anglicans, shortened as personal ordinariate or Anglican ordinariate,"...the liturgies approved for the Anglican ordinariates..." "Bishop Stephen Lopes of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Chair of St ...
is responsible for all the functions of the tournament. The members are:
*
Brijesh Patel
Brijesh Patel (born 24 November 1952) is the incumbent chairman of Indian Premier League and former cricketer who played for the Indian national cricket team as a right-handed batsman from 1974 until 1979.
Biography
Patel grew up in ...
– Chairman
*
Jay Shah – BCCI Secretary
* Arun Singh Dhumal – BCCI Treasurer
* M Khairul Jamal Majumdar – Member
*
Pragyan Ojha – Indian Cricketers Association representative
* Alka Rehani Bhardwaj –
Comptroller and Auditor General of India nominee
Organisation
Tournament format
Currently, with ten teams, the round-robin format was scrapped and two virtual groups of five were introduced similar to the
2011 season in the league phase. After the league stage, the top four teams will qualify for the
playoffs. The top two teams from the league phase will play against each other in the first Qualifying match, with the winner going straight to the IPL final and the loser getting another chance to qualify for the IPL final by playing the second Qualifying match. Meanwhile, the third and fourth place teams from the league phase play against each other in an eliminator match and the winner from that match will play the loser from the first Qualifying match. The winner of the second Qualifying match will move onto the final to play the winner of the first Qualifying match in the IPL Final match, where the winner will be crowned the Indian Premier League champions.
Player acquisition, squad composition and salaries
A team can acquire players through any of the three ways: the annual player auction, trading players with other teams during the trading windows, and signing replacements for unavailable players. Players sign up for the auction and also set their base price, and are bought by the franchise that bids the highest for them. Unsold players at the auction are eligible to be signed up as replacement signings. In the trading windows, a player can only be traded with his consent, with the franchise paying the difference if any between the old and new contracts. If the new contract is worth more than the older one, the difference is shared between the player and the franchise selling the player. There are generally three trading windowstwo before the auction and one after the auction but before the start of the tournament. Players cannot be traded outside the trading windows or during the tournament, whereas replacements can be signed before or during the tournament.
Some of the team composition rules (as of 2020 season) are as follows:
* The squad strength must be between 18 and 25 players, with a maximum of 8 overseas players.
*
Salary cap of the entire squad must not exceed .
* Under-19 players cannot be picked unless they have previously played
first-class or
List A
List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...
cricket.
* A team can play a maximum of 4 overseas players in their playing eleven.
The term of a player contract is one year, with the franchise having the option to extend the contract by one or two years. Since the 2014 season, the player contracts are denominated in the
Indian rupee, before which the contracts were in
U.S. dollars. Overseas players can be remunerated in the currency of the player's choice at the
exchange rate
In finance, an exchange rate is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another currency. Currencies are most commonly national currencies, but may be sub-national as in the case of Hong Kong or supra-national as in the case of ...
on either the contract due date or the actual date of payment. Prior to the 2014 season, Indian domestic players were not included in the player auction pool and could be signed up by the franchises at a discrete amount while a fixed sum of to would get deducted per signing from the franchise's salary purse. This received significant opposition from franchise owners who complained that richer franchises were "luring players with under-the-table deals" following which the IPL decided to include domestic players in the player auction.
According to a 2015 survey by Sporting Intelligence and ''
ESPN The Magazine'', the average IPL salary when
pro-rated is 4.33 million per year, the second highest among all sports leagues in the world. Since the players in the IPL are only contracted for the duration of the tournament (less than two months), the weekly IPL salaries are extrapolated pro rata to obtain an average annual salary, unlike other sports leagues in which players are contracted by a single team for the entire year.
Match rules
IPL games utilise
television timeouts and hence there is no time limit in which teams must complete their
innings
An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is bot ...
. However, a penalty may be imposed if the
umpires find teams misusing this privilege. Each team is given a two-and-a-half-minute "strategic timeout" during each innings; one must be taken by the
bowling team between the ends of the 6th and 9th
overs
Over may refer to:
Places
*Over, Cambridgeshire, England
*Over, Cheshire, England
*Over, South Gloucestershire, England
*Over, Tewkesbury, near Gloucester, England
**Over Bridge
*Over, Seevetal, Germany
Music
Albums
* ''Over'' (album), by Pete ...
, and one by the
batting team between the ends of the 13th and 16th overs.
Since the 2018 season, the
Umpire Decision Review System is being used in all IPL matches, allowing each team two chances to review an on-field umpire's decision per innings.
Prize money
The 2019 season of the IPL offered a total prize money of , with the winning team netting . The first and second runners up received and , respectively, with the fourth placed team also winning . The other teams are not awarded any prize money. The IPL rules mandate that half of the prize money must be distributed among the players.
Teams
Current teams
Defunct teams
Timeline
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:25
Period = from:2008 till:2023
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:120 left:5 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<#
Colors = id:barcolor
id:line value:pink
id:bg value:white
id:Present value:rgb(0.4,0.80,0.67) # Use this color to denote a team that is a current league member
id:Former value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a former league member
id:Suspended value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that is suspended
PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:S
bar:1 color:Present from:2008 till:2016 text: Chennai Super Kings (2008–2015; 2018–present)
bar:1 color:Suspended from:2016 till:2018 text: Suspended
bar:1 color:Present from:2018 till:end text:
bar:2 color:Present from:2008 till:2019 text: Delhi Daredevils (2008–2018)
bar:2 color:Present from:2019 till:end text: Delhi Capitals (2019–present)
bar:3 color:Present from:2008 till:end text: Kolkata Knight Riders (2008–present)
bar:4 color:Present from:2008 till:end text: Mumbai Indians (2008–present)
bar:5 color:Present from:2008 till:2021 text: Kings XI Punjab (2008–2020)
bar:5 color:Present from:2021 till:end text: Punjab Kings (2021–present)
bar:6 color:Present from:2008 till:2016 text: Rajasthan Royals (2008–2015; 2018–present)
bar:6 color:Suspended from:2016 till:2018 text: Suspended
bar:6 color:Present from:2018 till:end text:
bar:7 color:Present from:2008 till:end text: Royal Challengers Bangalore (2008–present)
bar:8 color:Present from:2013 till:end text: Sunrisers Hyderabad (2013–present)
bar:9 color:Present from:2022 till:end text: Gujarat Titans (2022–present)
bar:10 color:Present from:2022 till:end text: Lucknow Super Giants (2022–present)
bar:11 color:Former from:2008 till:2013 text: Deccan Chargers (2008–2012)
bar:12 color:Former from:2011 till:2012 text: Kochi Tuskers Kerala (2011)
bar:13 color:Former from:2011 till:2014 text: Pune Warriors India (2011–2013)
bar:14 color:Former from:2016 till:2018 text: Gujarat Lions (2016–2017)
bar:15 color:Former from:2016 till:2018 text: Rising Pune Supergiant (2016–2017)
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:2008
TextData =
fontsize:L
textcolor:black
pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center)
text:
Tournament seasons and results
With five titles,
Mumbai Indians
Mumbai Indians are a franchise cricket team based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, that competes in the Indian Premier League and is the most successful team of the tournament with 5 titles. Founded in 2008, the team is owned by India's biggest conglo ...
are the most successful team in the league's history in terms of the number of titles won. The
Chennai Super Kings have won four titles, the
Kolkata Knight Riders have won two, and four other teams,
Rajasthan Royals,
Deccan Chargers,
Sunrisers Hyderabad and
Gujarat Titans have won the title once.
The current champions are the
Gujarat Titans who defeated the
Rajasthan Royals by 7 wickets in the
final of the
2022 season to secure their first title.
Performance in the IPL by title
† Team now defunct.
IPL season results
Teams' performances
† Team now defunct.
League stage positions
† Team now defunct.
Awards
Orange Cap
The Orange Cap is awarded to the top run-scorer in the IPL during a season. It is an ongoing competition with the leader wearing the cap throughout the tournament until the final game, with the eventual winner keeping the cap for the season. Latest winner –
Jos Buttler – 863 Runs (2022).
Purple Cap
The Purple Cap is awarded to the top wicket-taker in the IPL during a season. It is an ongoing competition with the leader wearing the cap throughout the tournament until the final game, with the eventual winner keeping the cap for the season. Latest winner –
Yuzvendra Chahal – 27 wickets (2022).
Most Valuable Player
The award was called the "man of the tournament" until the 2012 season. The IPL introduced the Most Valuable Player rating system in 2013, the leader of which would be named the "Most Valuable Player" at the end of the season. Latest winner –
Jos Buttler (2022).
Fairplay Award
The Fair Play Award is given after each season to the team with the best record of fair play. The winner is decided on the basis of the points the umpires give to the teams. After each match, the two on-field umpires, and the third umpire, scores the performance of both teams. Latest winners – Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals.
Emerging player award
The award was presented for the "best under-19 player" in 2008 and "best under-23 player" in 2009 and 2010, being called "Under-23 Success of the Tournament". In 2011 and 2012, the award was known as "Rising Star of the Year", while, in 2013, it was called "Best Young Player of the Season". Since 2014, the award has been called the Emerging Player of the Year. In 2016,
Mustafizur Rahman of Bangladesh was the first and only foreign player to date to win the Emerging Player of the Year award. Latest winner –
Umran Malik
Umran Malik (born 22 November 1999) is an Indian international cricketer who plays for Indian cricket team in limited-overs cricket. Considered as one of the fastest bowler in contemporary world, Umran plays as a right-arm fast bowler for Sunri ...
(2022).
Most sixes award
The award for the most sixes in a season, currently known as
Unacademy Let's Crack It Sixes Award for sponsorship reasons, is presented to the batsman who hits the most sixes in a season of the IPL. English batsman
Jos Buttler of the Rajasthan Royals won this award in 2022 with 45 sixes in 17 innings.
Financials
Title sponsorship
From 2008 to 2012, the title sponsor was
DLF, India's largest real estate developer, who had secured the rights with a bid of for five seasons. After the conclusion of the 2012 season,
PepsiCo
PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...
bought the title sponsorship rights for for the subsequent five seasons. However, the company terminated the deal in October 2015, two years before the expiry of the contract, reportedly due to the two-season suspension of Chennai and Rajasthan franchises from the league. The BCCI then transferred the title sponsorship rights for the remaining two seasons of the contract to Chinese smartphone manufacturer
Vivo for . In June 2017, Vivo retained the rights for the next five seasons (2018–2022) with a winning bid of , in a deal more expensive than
Barclays
Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces ...
'
Premier League title sponsorship contract between 2013 and 2016. On 4 August 2020, Vivo got out of the title sponsorship rights due to the ongoing military stand-off between India and China at the
Line of Actual Control in July 2020. It was also reported that the withdrawal was a result of Vivo's market losses due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation and that it intended to return as the title sponsors for the following 3 years.
Dream11 bagged the title sponsorship for the 2020 IPL for an amount of ₹222 crore. Vivo returned as the title sponsor for the 2021 IPL, but pulled out again, and was replaced by the
Tata Group for the next 2 seasons. ''InsideSport'' reported that the BCCI would actually receive for the 2022 and 2023 seasons from title sponsors. Vivo had previously agreed to pay a higher amount for the last two seasons of its sponsorship contract due to the expansion of the league from the 2022 season. According to ''InsideSport'', the new deal had been structured such that Tata would pay per year while the deficit of per season would be paid by Vivo.
Aramco brought the rights to advertise on the Purple and Orange caps in 2022.
Payments to foreign national boards
BCCI pays 10 percent of the auctioned value of a player to their respective cricket boards. In January 2018, IPL Chairman Rajiv Shukla said that the IPL would double the amount paid to the cricket boards that made their players available for an entire season.
In 2022,
Australian Cricketers' Association
The Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) is an organisation that represents the professional first-class cricketers of Australia, both past and present. It is not a formally registered Trade Union, but an Incorporated Association.
Current adm ...
expressed his unhappiness on it.
Brand value
The tournament has grown rapidly in value over the years 2016–18, as seen in a series of jumps in value from one season to the next. The IPL as a whole was valued by financial experts at US$4.16 billion in 2016, but that number grew to $5.3 billion in 2017, and $6.13 billion in 2018. A report from Duff & Phelps said that one of the contributing factors in the rapid growth of the value of the Indian Premier League was signing a new television deal with Star India Private Limited, which engaged more viewers due to the fact that the IPL was transmitted to regional channels in 8 languages, rather than the previous deal, which saw the transmissions limited to sports networks with English language commentary.
The report also stated that the game continued to recover from recent controversy, stating "This IPL season has grabbed the eyeballs for all the right reasons with a relatively controversy free tournament, coupled with some scintillating on-field performances which have brought the spotlight back on the game."
According to another independent report conducted by Brand Finance, a London-based company, after the conclusion of the
2017 Indian Premier League
The 2017 season of the Indian Premier League, also known as IPL 10 and branded as Vivo IPL 2017, was the tenth edition of the IPL, a professional Twenty20 cricket league established by the BCCI in 2007. The tournament featured the eight teams ...
, the IPL has seen its business value grow by 37% to an all-time high of $5.3 billion — crossing the five billion mark for the first time in a season. According to the director of the company: "Now in its 11th season, the Indian Premier League is here to stay. The league has delivered financially for the players, franchisees, sponsors and India as a whole, prompting a strong desire among a range of stakeholders to appropriately value it. To ensure continued development, management and team owners will have to explore innovative ways of engaging fans, clubs, and sponsors."
• Insurance
In 2022, BCCI took insurance for IPL of . This insurance policy involves all the stake holders including broadcaster, ancillary services provider, sponsors, etc. for the case of any revenue losses happened due to weather, riots, etc.
Broadcasting
Sony and WSG (2008-2017)
The IPL's broadcast rights were originally held by a partnership between
Sony Pictures Networks and
World Sport Group under a ten-year contract valued at US$1.03 billion. Sony would be responsible for domestic television, while WSG would handle international distribution. The initial plan was for 20% of these proceeds to go to the IPL, 8% as prize money and 72% would be distributed to the franchisees from 2008 until 2012, after which the IPL would go public and list its shares. However, in March 2010, the IPL decided not to go public and list its shares. As of the 2016 season,
Sony MAX,
Sony SIX, and
Sony ESPN served as the domestic broadcasters of the IPL; MAX and SIX aired broadcasts with commentary in
Hindi, SIX additionally aired broadcasts in
Bengali,
Tamil,
Kannada and
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
, while Sony ESPN aired broadcasts in English.
Sony also produced an entertainment-oriented companion
talk show, ''
Extraaa Innings T20
''Extraaa Innings T20'' (also popularly called 'Extra Innings') is a cricket based show telecast in between match sessions during the Indian Premier League (IPL) that covered match analysis and expert opinions from commentators, retired players ...
'', which featured analysis and celebrity guests.
The IPL became a major television property within India; Sony MAX typically became the most-watched television channel in the country during the tournament,
and by 2016, annual advertising revenue surpassed . Viewership numbers were expected to increase further during the 2016 season due to the industry adoption of the new BARC ratings system, which also calculates rural viewership rather than only urban markets.
In the 2016 season, Sony's broadcasts achieved just over 1 billion impressions (television viewership in thousands), jumping to 1.25 billion the following year.
Star India (2018-2022)
On 4 September 2017, it was announced that the then-current digital rights-holder,
Star India
Disney Star Private Limited is an Indian media conglomerate and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Disney Star network runs more than 70 TV channels in eight languages, reac ...
, had acquired the global media rights to the IPL under a five-year contract beginning in 2018. Valued at 163.475 billion (US$2.55 billion,
£1.97 billion), it is a 158% increase over the previous deal, and the most expensive broadcast rights deal in the history of cricket. The IPL sold the rights in packages for domestic television, domestic digital, and international rights; although Sony held the highest bid for domestic television, and
Facebook had made a US$600 million bid for domestic digital rights (which U.S. media interpreted as a sign that the social network was interested in pursuing professional sports rights), Star was the only bidder out of the shortlist of 14 to make bids in all three categories.
Star CEO
Uday Shankar stated that the IPL was a "very powerful property", and that Star would "remain very committed to make sure that the growth of sports in this country continues to be driven by the power of cricket". He went on to say that "whoever puts in that money, they put in that money because they believe in the fans of the sport. The universe of cricket fans, it tells you, continues to very healthy, continues to grow. What was paid in 2008, that was 2008. India and cricket and IPL—all three have changed dramatically in the last 10 years. It is a reflection of that."
The deal led to concerns that Star India now held a
monopoly on major cricket rights in the country, as it is also the rights-holder of ICC competitions and the Indian national team.
For its inaugural season, Star aimed to put a larger focus on widening the IPL's appeal with a "core" cricket audience. The network aimed to broadcast at least two hours of IPL-related programming daily from January until the start of the season, having organised televised announcements of player retention selections and new team captains. Viewership of the player auction, which featured pre- and post-auction reactions and analysis, increased six-fold to 46.5 million. In March, Star Sports broadcast ''Game Plan: In Your City'' specials from the home city of each of the IPL's franchises. Star Sports stated that its in-season coverage and studio programming would focus more on the game itself and behind-the-scenes coverage of the IPL's teams, rather than trying to incorporate irrelevant entertainment elements. The network introduced a new studio program known as ''The Dugout'', which broadcasts coverage of matches with analysis from a panel of experts.
Star streams IPL matches in India and other markets to subscribers of its streaming service
Hotstar. Matches are also available on Jio TV and Airtel TV apps on smartphones. Throughout the 2019 season, international streaming viewership on Hotstar saw records, exceeding 10 million concurrent viewers multiple times. The
2019 final broke these records, peaking at 18.6 million concurrent streaming viewers. Hotstar initially scheduled its relaunch as
Disney+ Hotstar to coincide with the opening of the
2020 season. However, with the postponement of the IPL season, the relaunch was pushed back to 3 April 2020.
2023-2027
The next cycle of IPL media rights will last from 2023 through 2027, and was put to auction.
In this auction the broadcasting rights was divided in two four Packages. Package A was for the domestic television rights, Package B was for the domestic digital rights. Package C was for the digital rights of 18 non-exclusive matches and Package D was for the international TV and digital rights which was further divided into four groups. On 13 June 2022, it was reported that the packages for domestic television and streaming rights had fetched at least 397.75 billion (nearly US$5.1 billion) in total, doubling the value of the 2018–2022 contract.
The next day, it was announced that Star Sports had renewed its contract for television rights by winning package A, and that a
Viacom18 consortium had exclusively acquired the streaming rights by winning both Package B and C. The two contracts for Package A and B are cumulatively valued at around US$6.2 billion; with the new contracts, the IPL overtook the
Premier League in English football as the second highest-valued sports media property worldwide, behind only the
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
, whose new 11-year contracts with multiple broadcasters fetched US$111 billion.
International broadcasters
The IPL's first major international media deal was with
YouTube, which streamed matches in
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
outside of the United States (where
Willow TV has held linear television rights to the IPL) under a two-year deal.
As of the 2018 season,
Hotstar holds worldwide streaming rights to the IPL.
In the United States, the IPL is also streamed on
ESPN+
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
, a sister to Star Sports and Hotstar via The Walt Disney Company; Hotstar had begun to be wound down in the U.S. market in September 2021, with its sports content dispersed to ESPN+.
Controversy
2012 and 2013 IPL spot fixing and betting scandal
In 2013
Ajit Chandila
Ajit Chandila (born 5 December 1983) is a former Indian cricketer from Haryana. He played for Rajasthan Royals until 2013 but was previously known for his performance for the Air India North Zone team.
Indian Premier League career
His (IPL) ...
,
Ankeet Chavan and
S Sreesanth were arrested by the Delhi police on the allegations of spot fixing.
Gurunath Meiyappan, Chennai Super Kings Team Principal and son-in-law of the BCCI president
N Srinivasan
Narayanaswami Srinivasan (born 3 January 1945) is an Indian industrialist. He is a former Chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and former President of the BCCI, the governing body for cricket in India. He is also the managing ...
was also arrested by police for illegally betting on IPL matches and passing on team information to bookies. Chandila, Chavan and Sreesanth were for life from cricket by the BCCI.
Sponsorship
The IPL faced heavy criticism for retaining Chinese sponsors for the 2020 IPL season, amidst calls to
boycott Chinese goods, and while the
2020 China–India skirmishes were still going on.
Omar Abdullah and
Randeep Singh Surjewala
Randeep Singh Surjewala (born 3 June 1967) is an Indian politician from Haryana and a member of Indian National Congress party. He was an MLA in the Haryana state legislature until 2019 and a former minister. He held water supply and sanitatio ...
both criticized the BCCI/IPL Governing Council's decision to retain the Chinese sponsors.
Swadeshi Jagran Manch, an affiliate of
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), said that the 2020 IPL should not feature the Chinese company
Vivo.
See also
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Sports in India - an overview of Sports culture in India
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Cricket in India
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History of cricket
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Women's T20 Challenge
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Women's Indian Premier League
The Women's Premier League (WPL) also known as TATA WPL due to sponsorship reasons, is an upcoming women's Twenty20 cricket franchise league in India. It is owned and operated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The first se ...
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List of professional sports leagues in India
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List of cricket leagues in India
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Surrogate advertising
Surrogate advertising is a strategy of advertising a product that can not be advertised openly. In Surrogate Advertising, advertisers create advertisement(s) that help in building a brand and often involve popular celebrities without naming the a ...
- types of advertisements feature during IPL
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Fantasy sport in India - overview of
Fantasy sport in India
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Ranji Trophy
The Ranji Trophy (also known as Mastercard Ranji Trophy for sponsorship reasons) is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between multiple teams representing regional and state cricket associations. Board of Control for Cr ...
- primer
first-class cricket tournament of India
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List of Indian Premier League records and statistics
References
External links
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Tournament homeon
ESPNcricinfo
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{{Authority control
Cricket leagues in India
Sports leagues in India
Professional sports leagues in India
Professional cricket leagues
2008 establishments in India
Sports leagues established in 2008
Twenty20 cricket leagues
Sport in India
Organisations based in Maharashtra
Organisations based in Mumbai
Cricket in India