The BCCI is planning to have an e-bidding for the two new Inidan Premier League teams on October 17 and the bids to buy the sides can be made till October 5.The ninth and tenth team in the league will be decided just two days after the IPL final in Dubai and the day the Twenty20 World Cup kick-starts. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had recently announced the release of tender for owning and operating two new Indian Premier League franchises. “The Governing Council of the IPL invites bids to acquire the right to own and operate 1 (one) of the 2 (two) new teams proposed to be introduced to take part in the Indian Premier League from the IPL 2022 season, through a tender process,” the BCCI said in a statement.
Among the venues where the teams could be based include Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Pune. The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad and Ekana Stadium in Lucknow, with bigger capacities, could be the choice for franchises. This effectively signals that the IPL will be a 10-team tournament from the 2022 season. According to a Cricbuzz report, after the 10 teams, the number of league matches for each team will be either 14 or 18 with a minimum of seven home and seven away games assured to each franchise. Currently, the league has eight teams and each teams gets to play same, seven home and as many away games. In the revised scenario, there should be nine home and nine away games but due to absence of larger window, it is likely that the BCCI will stick for 14 games while keeping the option of 18 league games in the agreement open. The number of league matches in total could be either 74 or 94, depending on the window available. Next year, when the current cycle of media rights ends, there will be 74 games with all teams getting to play seven home and seven away games in a format of two groups.
On the financial front, BCCI has made it clear that each bidder should have a net worth of Rs 2500 crores and the company has to have a turnover of Rs 3000 crores. In the case of a consortium, the BCCI will allow only three partners and one of them has to fulfil the above criteria of Rs 2500 crore net worth and Rs 3000 crore turnover. As has been reported, the base price is Rs 2000 crore. There will be two stages for bidding - legal and financial. Once the legal department is satisfied with the bidder's qualifying criteria, the financial bid will be opened. One can bid for two to six cities, marking the value one is willing to provide for each centre. Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Indore, Cuttack, Guwahati and Dharamsala are the cities available for bidding. The two highest bidders will get the teams who will then have to pay 10 percent of franchise fee every year for 10 years and will be entitled for 50 percent revenue share and post the 10-year period, the franchises will have to pay 20 percent of its income and will continue to receive 50 percent of the central pool of revenue after every IPL season. Quite a few parties, including some agencies, are believed to have bought the ITT document and one of them is Sanjiv Goenka of the RPSG Group that had previously owned the Pune franchise for two years.
