SportsPro presents all the commercial information you need to know about cricket’s preeminent T20 competition and its ten teams.
Founded in 2007, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has already established itself as one of the world’s most lucrative domestic sports competitions.
Indeed, the 2023 season marked the first year of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) new broadcast deals with Disney Star, Viacom18 and Times Internet, which are paying a combined US$6.2 billion to broadcast the IPL until 2027. It means the ten-franchise T20 cricket competition now trails only the all-conquering National Football League (NFL) when it comes to media rights value per game.
The eyeballs and star names that the IPL attracts has also made the month-long competition a mecca for brands. Indian conglomerate Tata Group – which recently put its name to the newly launched Women’s Premier League (WPL) – is returning for its second season as title sponsor, while a new partnership was recently secured with the Saudi Tourism Authority. Speaking last year, BCCI secretary Jay Shah revealed that the IPL had exceeded the Rs 1,000 crore (US$121 million) mark for sponsorship revenue for the first time.
All that has contributed towards the average IPL franchise now being worth a little more than US$1 billion, according to Forbes, which says that value has increased by 24 per cent annually since 2009, when the average price was US$67 million.
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