The Indian Premier League proved out to be a profitable deal for all eight franchisee owners as they had close to 80% returns after it’s first season, according to the BCCI.

In the two-day AGM at Mumbai, the Indian Cricket Board released the figures. On an average, most franchise owners paid Rs 289 crore to the board as the first annual installment of the amounts they bid to buy their team. In return each team earned around Rs 224 crore under the revenue sharing clause, mostly from TV rights revenues and sponsorship deals.

In fact, overall the IPL declared a profit of Rs 51 crore after paying the teams. Lalit Modi, the IPL Commissioner, said new franchises could sell for at least four times more than the first season.
Source:cricket.ndtv.com

New Delhi, September 29: VVS Laxman, who led the Deccan Chargers in the inaugural Indian Premier League season, was on Monday replaced by former Australia vice-captain Adam Gilchrist to ‘re-unite the outstanding talent’ of the team which ended at the bottom despite its star-studded line-up.

Laxman had drawn criticism from his team member Shahid Afridi who said Twenty20 cricket was not the forte of the Indian batsman after the team managed only two wins from their 14 matches with the likes of Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs, Scott Styris and Rohit Sharma in its ranks.”Adam Gilchrist commands respect within the team and right around the cricket world. He has redefined the role of wicketkeeper/batsman in modern cricket,” said Tim Wright, Chief Executive of Deccan Chargers in a statement issued in New Delhi.

“I am confident Adam Gilchrist will unite Deccan Chargers’ outstanding talent. Four members of our squad were on the India tour of Sri Lanka, more than any other IPL team, and the quality of our overseas players is well known. These players will play for Gilchrist,” he added.Gilchrist, who averaged 47.60 runs in 96 Test Matches and 35.89 runs in 287 One-Day Internationals, helped Australia win the World Cup three times.The wicketkeeper-batsman holds the world Test record for number of sixes hit (100) and has claimed 472 dismissals behind the stumps.

Adam Gilchrist said, “It’s a tremendous thrill and honour to become captain of the Deccan Chargers. I look forward to working hard with everybody towards making the team successful.”

Source:expressindia.com

Far from being a controversy-ridden battle, Australia’s pace spearhead Brett Lee reckons his team’s four-Test series against India will go down as a ‘hallmark of friendship’ because players from both the sides have forgotten about past rows.Indian and Australian players have been involved in several on-field and off-field spats in the recent past, with Andrew Symonds-Harbhajan Singh race row being the ugliest face-offs.

But Lee said the Indian Premier League offered them a good opportunity to clear the air and forge friendships.
“In the IPL the players forged good bonds and the upcoming series will be a new leaf and a new page in the history of both countries.”I am not worried about what had happened in the past but we look to play here in the spirit of the game,” he said.

The Australians are in Jaipur for a couple of practice matches before the official series gets underway in Bangalore with the first Test on October 9.

Source: rediff.com

NEW DELHI: If the cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has its way, soon Indian Premier League (IPL) T-shirts, jerseys, caps, cafes and bars could be all over the place.

Having mopped up Rs 350 crore in profits from the inaugural IPL, BCCI is further monetising the league. To begin with, sources say, BCCI is working on plans to license out IPL brand for about $15-20 million for a five-year window. Board officials are learnt to be in talks with two-three global merchandising firms for licensing out IPL brand before the second season commences next April-May.

BCCI plans to license out IPL brand for T-shirts, jerseys and caps; cricket gear, including gloves, stumps and helmets; stationery; bags; and, subsequently, even to bars and cafes. The licensing deal could pan out to other countries which have representations from players in the league. Sporting properties such as Fifa, Wimbledon and EPL teams like Manchester United operate wide-spread licensing models across various global markets. IPL CEO Sundar Raman told ET: “We are evaluating various options and will go with what is best.”

IPL merchandise would be independent of products sold by team franchisees and their sponsors. The concept could be a money spinner, say industry experts. In the first IPL season, for example, footwear and apparel maker Reebok made a neat profit by selling KKR-branded T-shirts and jerseys. Reebok, the merchandise partner of KKR, sold merchandise of over Rs 5-7 crore in Kolkata alone. This, when SRK jerseys were priced at Rs 1,899 each and T-shirts at roughly Rs 500. As Reebok failed to meet the demand, fake KKR-SRK apparel gained currency.

Licensed merchandise is a fast-growing retail segment, with global retail sales estimated at about $195.7 billion last year. Meanwhile, all eight teams are working on plans to monetise their team prospects by planning long-term corporate sponsorship deals in addition to the ones they had inked for the first season. These could also include merchandising deals with sponsors.

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Over Rs 20 lakh spent just on cushioned chairs for VIP guests during the Indian Premier League (IPL)! Well, in what could snowball into the biggest controversy over Prasun Mukherjee’s reign at the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), it has been revealed that cricketing body overspent big time during this year’s Twenty20 extravaganza.

When Shah Rukh Khan’s much-hyped Kolkata Knight Riders took the city by storm in April-May during the 45-day Twenty20 carnival, little did he and the Indian Cricket board realize that the CAB administration would bungle badly and overshoot their IPL budget by almost Rs five crore.
Source: indianexpress.com