The Adani Group and the RP Sanjiv Goenka Group are among the favourites in the race to own the two new teams in next year’s Indian Premier League for which the bidding will happen today. While more than 20 entities have acquired the bid documents, not all of them are expected to put in a financial bid.

Others in the fray are likely to be Jindal Steel, Torrent Pharma, Aurobindo Pharma and Avram Glazer, whose family owns a majority stake in Manchester United football club.

Expression of Interest

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has invited expression of interest to acquire the right to own and operate two new teams. Currently, there are eight IPL teams. The new teams will play from the IPL 2022 season.

While the base price has been kept at ₹2,000 crore per team, analysts are expecting the bids to be in the range of ₹5,000-7,000 crore.

Fresh scramble for talent?

But some of the existing franchisees are not in favour of opening up the field to a new team as they fear losing their key players in the event of a fresh auction. “It can erode the value of a successful franchisee if some of their top players are bought out by another team during the auction,” said the owner of an existing franchisee.

Spotlight on cities

But despite these objections, the BCCI is pushing through with the move to include two new teams for the 2022 IPL edition to cash in on the rising popularity of the league across the country. The two new teams will represent either of the 6 cities shortlisted by the BCCI. These cities are Ahmedabad, Cuttack, Dharamsala, Guwahati, Indore and Lucknow. The BCCI had last year reached out to large corporates, including the Tatas, the Adanis and the Sanjiv Goenka group, to gauge their interest in owning new teams.

‘Adani group keen’

According to sources, the Gujarat-based Adani group is keen on forming a team with the newly christened Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad as the base.

The Sanjiv Goenka group is also keen on making a comeback to IPL after its earlier team the Rising Pune Supergiant was suspended due to alleged involvement in betting.

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