The governing council of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has agreed to the inclusion of two new teams in the tournament starting from 2011, the auction for which is likely to be held in the first quarter 2010.
The subject of inviting bids for two new teams was first discussed with the existing franchisees during an IPL workshop at Bangkok in October this year, and the decision was left for the governing council to ratify, reports Times of India.
In Thursday's meeting, the governing council gave the go-ahead and now, a minimum bid price of a whopping $225m for each team has been set for the auction to take place. It is four and a half times more than the reserve price of $50m set in the inaugural year, 2007 and double of what the most expensive franchise (Mumbai Indians, $111.9m) was sold for in 2008.
Interestingly, during IPL Season 2, UK-based international brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance Plc had valued IPL at a little over $2bn.
The cities to be considered for auction have not been announced yet. Sahara Group, who had bid during the first auction held in 2007 is among the interested parties once again. "We will first have to see which are the two venues that are added and if the venue suits our prospects only then we will be interested," Abhijit Sarkar, Sahara's head of corporate communications told TOI on Thursday.
Future Group, India's largest retail chain, had also been among the bidders back then. However, they aren't showing any interest this time around.
The 12 venues first picked by IPL in 2007 were Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Cuttack, Kanpur, Gwalior, Mohali, Jaipur, Delhi, Hyderabad. It is learnt that the IPL could float names of five venues to interested bidders.
Other Decisions:
1. Fresh player auction, after two new teams are in place, scheduled after 2nd edition of Champions League in October, 2010
2. Auction for IPL-3 (2010) on January 19. A purse of $750,000 each will be made available to franchisees. Modi says he had received requests from 12 Pakistani players to be part of this auction
3. 2010 edition kicks off at Hyderabad on March 12, third place match and the final at DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai on April 24 & 25 respectively. Semi-finals at Bangalore
4. Two-player cap on centrally contracted Aussie players in each IPL team removed.
