Lucknow and Ahemdabad are the two new IND-T20 League Franchises

In what has been a decisive moment in the cricket business, two corporate behemoths - RP Sanjiv Goenka Group (RPSG) and CVC Capital Partners have made a bid of a startling sum of money, close to over USD 1.4 billion, to buy the two freshly sanctioned IND-T20 franchises. The walk in bidding event was held in Dubai on Monday and featured big business organizations from all across the nation. Adani Group, Kotak, Capri Global and a few other famous names were a part of this auction. Where RPSG paid INR 7090 crore to claim the Lucknow franchise, CVC bought the Ahmedabad franchise for INR 5625 crore. RPSG’s staggering bid was the highlight of the cash rich trade affair. 

Their bid exceeded the base price set by the cricket board of India. It was about 250% more than the actual base price (INR 2000 crore). For CVC, the corresponding figure was over 160%. A total of 22 companies had purchased the tender but only 9 appeared in the mega event. The entire technical evaluation process for bid assessment was monitored by the Indian T20 League governing council as well as the Indian cricket board top brass led by board president Sourav Ganguly, vice president Rajiv Shukla, treasurer Arun Dhumal, secretary Jay Shah and joint secretary Jayesh George.     

The new franchises will need to pay off the complete amount over a 10 year period. The cricket board of India had put stringent norms in the bid documents to ensure a strong foundation for the owners. A bidder needed to have a turnover of at least INR 3000 crores per year for a minimum of the last three years. Since the calculations were made in terms of net asset value, the number (turnover) was pulled down to INR 2500 crores. Cuttack, Dharamsala, Guwahati and Indore were the other cities apart from Lucknow and Ahmedabad shortlisted by the Ind-T20 League for the bid.