Ahmedabad and Lucknow were added as two new Indian Premier League franchises on Monday after an auction ceremony conducted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India in Dubai.
The Governing Council of the IPL had issued an Invitation to Tender to acquire the right to own and operate two new franchises.
“Pursuant to the tender process, various interested parties submitted their bids for the new franchises. The bids were submitted by the authorised representatives of the interested parties at Dubai today,” the BCCI stated.
“BCCI is pleased to announce the following successful bidders (subject to definitive documentation and other formalities being completed):
1. RPSG Ventures Ltd. – Lucknow (for INR 7090 crores)
2. Irelia Company Pte Ltd. (CVC Capital Partners) – Ahmedabad (for INR 5625 crores)
The new franchises will participate in IPL from 2022 season onwards subject to the bidders completing the post-bid formalities as specified in the ITT document. The IPL 2022 season will comprise ten teams and will have 74 matches, wherein each team will play seven home and as many away matches.
“The BCCI is happy to welcome two new teams from the next season of the Indian Premier League,” said BCCI president Sourav Ganguly. “It is heartening to see the inclusion of two new teams at such a high valuation, and it reiterates the cricketing and financial strength of our cricket ecosystem. True to IPL’s motto of ‘Where Talent Meets Opportunity’, the inclusion of two new teams will bring more domestic cricketers from our country to the global stage.”
The ITT process included two interested bidders from outside of India.
BCCI conducted the auction for two new IPL franchises in Dubai on Monday, with as many as 10 parties entering the bidding process.
Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Cuttack, Dharamsala, Guwahati and Indore were the centres that the bidders were allowed to base their team in.
