The Tata Indian Premier League 2022 will be played with a new format with the teams divided into two group as the tournament gets underway from March 26, 2022.

This was decided by the IPL Governing Council at its meeting held on Thursday. The tournament final will be played on May 29, 2022.

“A total of 70 league matches will be played across four international standard venues in Mumbai and Pune. The venue for the playoff matches will be decided later,” as per the release.

New format

As per the new format, ten teams will play a total of 14 league matches (seven home matches and seven away matches) totalling to 70 league matches, followed by the four playoff matches. 

Each team will play five teams twice and the remaining four teams only once (two only home and two only away).

The teams have been assigned in two groups based on previous record including the number of IPL championships won by the teams and the number of final matches played.

Mumbai Indians in Group A

As per the announcement by BCCI, group A with the five time champions Mumbai Indians at the top includes, Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Capitals and Lucknow Supergiants.

The group B will comprise Chennai Super Kings, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Punjab Kings and Gujarat Titans.

Earlier, the IPL was an eight-team affair where each team played each other twice at the round robin league stage to complete 14 games. However, the format has been changed with the addition of two new teams this year. Th new format was previously used a decade ago when the league included Pune Warriors and Kochi Tuskers Kerala.

“Each team will play twice with the teams in their group and with the team in the same row in the second group. With the rest of the teams in the second group they will play only once during the season,” it said.

Overall, all teams will play four matches each at Wankhede Stadium and DY Patil Stadium, three matches each at Brabourne Stadium (CCI) and MCA International Stadium, Pune.

The 15th edition of IPL will be played in a bio-secure environment at a single hub to avoid air travel amid the Covid-19 pandemic, as per the advisory.

The IPL brand

The addition of the two new teams this year Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Supergiants will add to the overall brand value of IPL impacting multiple aspects of the tournament which will now stretch for a longer period of time, according to experts.

According to Ajimon Francis, Managing Director, Brand Finance India, “There are multiple dimensions to it. The old tournament gets stretched into a longer period of time with ten teams. Therefore, the advertising opportunities are more. So the media rights are going to be much more valuable.” BCCI is expected to auction the media rights over the next few weeks.

Further, advertisers will have more days to run advertisements. “There is a most likely to be a 20 to 25 per cent hike which is going to happen on the media revenue for the IPL Governing Council,” as per Francis.

The additional revenues from media will also benefit the franchises.

Even in terms of merchandising sponsors that are usually addressed to franchisee teams, the price whether the team can ideally charge from the sponsors is also likely to be higher.

“The whole ecosystem is getting stirred up,” he said. However, “there could be a little bit of fatigue among the audience because of the extended time,” as per Francis.

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