The 2026 edition of the Indian Premier League caravan set off on March 28 in Bengaluru in grand fashion. The 2026 season of the Indian Premier League got underway at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on March 28 as defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru scripted a historic chase against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
RCB have made a perfect start to their season and to the new reign under new owners as a consortium of Aditya Birla Group, Times Group, Bolt Ventures, and Blackstone bought off the franchise for a sum of INR 16,660 Crores (USD 1.78 Billion) before the start of the season.
Earlier on the same day, the Rajasthan Royals were also acquired by a consortium led by a group owned by an existing shareholder, Kal Somani. The Somani-led
consortium, which also includes Walmart, paid a sum of INR 15,278 Crores (USD 1.63 Billion) for the Royals.
Huge Value In Building Cricketing Leagues Around The World
With so many cricketing leagues sprouting across the world, it is a sign that T20 cricket has been successful in reaching and retaining newer audiences, with the longer formats not able to achieve the same over the last few years.
Arguably, we could consider the Indian Premier League as the pioneer of all cricketing leagues, as IPL started way back in 2008 when T20 cricket was still finding its feet in several countries. When the league started, it wasn't seen as a behemoth in terms of money-making, but the franchises helped build the brand of the league over the last two decades.
With fans crowding outside stadiums just to get a sniff of their favorite cricketers playing against each other, rather than with each other in the Indian cricket team, IPL became a summer phenomenon for every cricket fan in the country.
With the IPL holding such a big reputation that it has almost blocked international cricket or at least major international cricket matches from being played in the two-month concurrent period, or getting very little attention from broadcasters and cricketing fans alike across the world.
With IPL grabbing several eyeballs, it becomes a playing ground for brands that are already associated with cricket across the world or want to enter categories that are adjacent to the interests of cricket fans.
With several brands fighting for the IPL title sponsor, associate sponsors, and even sponsors for the franchises, as they rival each other for a place on the jersey of the franchise, they think brand visibility would help them reach newer audiences or maintain relevancy in their existing audiences.
With so many cricket leagues around the world, several sports and sports-adjacent brands have found the perfect home for their advertising, funnelling new money into the cricketing circuit, which helps the players and the cricket boards to build a certain kind of financial security.
Mohak opines that this was the right time to cash in for the previous franchise owners
If I view this from a distant neutral lens, it would be fair to say that the IPL is going through its golden period, with most teams able to sell out their home matches, viewership still crossing several benchmarks, as fans can still see the likes of MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma play T20 cricket at the highest level.
The biggest factor that makes this the golden period for the cash-rich league is the broadcast and digital rights' revenue, which was bagged by Jio, which outprized Disney at the start of the ongoing bidding cycle.
But, Jio and Disney have now joined hands, which would invite more players to the table to rival the commercial behemoth, but it is very tough to see anyone outbidding JioHotstar as their current number would also be good enough to surpass the bid of other entities, implying that the broadcast revenue will either hit a trough or at least flatten out for the upcoming cycle. The previous owners of RCB and RR found this to be the right time to sell the franchises.
The Rajasthan Royals were previously owned mainly by Manoj Badale, and the business tycoon has decided to move away from the Jaipur-based franchise after several years of struggle to find a star face for the brand.
From what I am hearing, Badale and other early stakeholders in the Royals franchise have earned about 50x of their initial investment, which would certainly be music to their ears, given the upcoming uncertainty about the league's length and broadcasting revenue central pool.
On the other hand, Diageo, the previous owners of Royal Challengers Bengaluru, was somehow looking to move out of their prized asset after the mishap at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in the aftermath of the franchise winning its first IPL title.
With RCB currently holding the title of defending champions and Kohli still playing at the peak of his abilities, it would be hard to argue with the fact that the previous owners made the right move to sell to the Birla Group-led consortium.
With each franchise currently being valued upwards of 1.5 billion dollars, as evidenced by the recent sales of both legacy franchises, several franchise owners would be gunning for a further increase in the valuations of their prized assets over the next decade, as the likes of Reliance Group and GMR seem to be in this race for a long time and not just for a good time.
