IPL
On 13 September 2007,at the start of the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, the BCCI announced a franchise based Twenty20 cricket competition known as the Indian Premier League. The inaugural season was scheduled to start in April 2008, commencing with a "high-profile ceremony" in New Delhi. BCCI Vice-president Lalit Modi, who led the IPL initiative, provided details of the tournament, including its format, prize money, franchise revenue system, and squad composition rules. The league, to be managed by a seven-man governing council, would also serve as the qualifying mechanism for that year's Champions League Twenty20.
To determine team ownership, an auction for the franchises was held on 24 January 2008. The reserve prices for the eight franchises totalled $400 million,but the auction ultimately raised $723.59 million. The league officially commenced in April 2008, featuring Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Mumbai Indians (MI), Delhi Daredevils (DD), Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), Deccan Chargers (DC), Rajasthan Royals (RR), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
Following the ban on players who chose to participate in the ICL, the rival league shut down in 2009.
New franchises, Pune Warriors India and Kochi Tuskers Kerala, joined the league before the fourth season in 2011.The Sahara Adventure Sports Group purchased the Pune franchise for $370 million, while Rendezvous Sports World bought the Kochi franchise for $333.3 million. The Kochi franchise was terminated after just one season due to their failure to pay the BCCI the 10% bank guarantee element of the franchise fee.
In September 2012, the Deccan Chargers franchise agreement was terminated after the BCCI failed to find new owners.In October, an auction was held for a replacement franchise; Sun TV Network won the bid for what became the Hyderabad franchise;the team was named Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Pune Warriors India withdrew from the IPL in May 2013 due to financial differences with the BCCI. The BCCI officially terminated the franchise in October, and the league reverted to eight teams.
In June 2015, the two-time champions Chennai Super Kings and the inaugural season champions Rajasthan Royals were suspended for two seasons following their involvement in a spot-fixing and betting scandal.The two teams were replaced for two seasons by franchises based in Pune and Rajkot.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the venue for the 2020 season was moved and games were played in the United Arab Emirates.In August 2021, the BCCI announced that two new franchises, based in two of six shortlisted cities, would join the league in the 2022 season. In closed bidding held in October, the RPSG Group and CVC Capital won the bids for the teams, paying ₹7,000 crore (US$800 million) and ₹5,200 crore (US$600 million), respectively. The teams were subsequently named Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans.
Several IPL franchise owners have expanded their business by acquiring teams in other franchise leagues, such as the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), South Africa's SA20, the UAE's International League T20 (ILT) and the USA's Major League Cricket (MLC).
In addition to these acquisitions, Delhi Capitals also bought a stake in MLC's Seattle Orcas.
In 2025, stakes in teams from The Hundred became available. RPSG Group (owners of the Super Giants) bought a 70% stake in Manchester Originals for around £81m, while Mumbai Indians bought at 49% stake in the Oval Invincibles for £60m.Yorkshire sold 100% of Northern Superchargers to Sun Group (Sunrisers Hyderabad) for £100m. The GMR Group (Delhi Capitals) had already acquired Hampshire in a 2024 deal, including the club's 51% stake in the Southern Brave and bought the remaining 49% for around £48m.
A team can acquire players through the annual player auction, trading with other teams during trading windows, and signing replacements for unavailable players. Players sign up for the auction and set their base price and are bought by the highest-bidding franchise. Unsold players at the auction can become replacement signings. Trades require player consent, and any contract differences are covered by the franchise. There are typically three trading windows: two before the auction and one before the tournament. No trading is allowed outside these windows or during the tournament, but replacements can be signed before or during the event.
Other notable rules, as of the 2024 season, include:
The salary cap of the entire squad have been allotted a purse of ₹120 crore each.
Under-19 players cannot be picked unless they have previously played first-class or List A cricket.
Player contracts run for one year but can be extended by one or two years if the franchises take up the option. Since the 2014 season, player contracts have been denominated in the Indian rupee, before which the contracts were in the US dollar. Overseas players can be remunerated in the currency of the player's choice, at the exchange rate on either the contract due date or the actual payment date.Before the 2014 season, Indian domestic players were not included in the player auction pool. They could be signed up by franchises at a discrete amount while a fixed sum of ₹10 lakh (US$11,000) to ₹30 lakh (US$34,000) would be deducted per signing from the franchise's salary purse. This received significant opposition from franchise owners, who complained richer franchises were "luring players with under-the-table deals." The IPL later decided to include domestic players in the player auction.
The BCCI give 10% of foreign players' salaries to their country's national cricket board.
Based on a 2024 report by Forbes India, the average IPL salary among the top 10 highest-paid players is ₹12.37 crore,the second-highest of sports leagues in the world. Because players in the IPL are contracted only for the duration of the tournament – less than two months – the weekly IPL salaries are extrapolated pro data to obtain an average annual salary, unlike other sports leagues in which players are contracted by a single team for the entire year.
According to a report by The Telegraph, IPL players are paid 18% of the revenue, which is the lowest amount compared to other major sports leagues, in which players receive at least 50% of the revenue. The Federation of International Cricketers' Associations said that IPL players must be paid fairly.
The next cycle of IPL media rights will last from 2023 to 2027 and will be put to auction. In this auction, the broadcasting rights were divided into four packages. Package A was for domestic television rights, and Package B was for domestic digital rights. Package C was for the digital rights of eighteen non-exclusive matches, and Package D was for international television and digital rights, further divided into four groups. On 13 June 2022, it was reported 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, whose new media contracts taking effect in the 2023 season cumulatively fetched US$111 billion.
In February 2023, Viacom18 announced it would stream the 2023 IPL for free on JioCinema with feeds in 12 languages, including English and regional languages, and in 4K resolution. The same month, The Walt Disney Company reported its loss of the IPL had contributed to a net loss of 2.4 million Disney+ subscribers worldwide, primarily in India.
Ahead of the 2023 IPL, Star launched HD feeds of Star Sports 1 in Tamil and Telugu and announced its free-to-air channel Star Utsav Movies would carry twelve matches. It was anticipated that viewership of Star Sports' broadcasts may not be heavily impacted by the Jio deal due to its existing market reach (including as rights holder of India's home matches) and viewers who preferred linear television due to being less familiar with over-the-top services, or concerns over technical issues associated with such services. JioCinema reported the IPL had 1.4 billion views on the service over the opening weekend, which was higher than the entirety of the 2022 season on Disney+ Hotstar.The 2023 final set a record for the most concurrent viewers of a livestreamed event, peaking at over 32 million viewers (surpassing a record of 25.3 million set by Hotstar during the 2019 Cricket World Cup).
