Making of the Indian Premier League (IPL)

Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional Twenty20 cricket league created and promoted by the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) and supported by the ICC (International Cricket Council). Initially there are only eight teams in the league, comprising of a minimum of 16 players in each. All 8 teams are owned by the Indian Private Sector Companies, including some owned by famous Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla and Preity Zinta.

The IPL is the brainchild of Lalit Modi, the flamboyant vice-president of BCCI. It is modeled along the lines of club football in Europe, specifically the English Premier League. The IPL works on a franchise-system. These franchises were put up for auction, where the highest bidder won the rights to own the team, representing each city. The auction took place on January 24, 2008 and the total base price for the auction was $400 million. The auction actually fetched $725 million.

The Indian Premier League chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi announced Rs. 12 crore ($3 million) as the prize money for the Twenty20 cricket league. The inaugural DLF IPL tournament was played between April 18, 2008 through June 1, 2008. A total of 59 matches were played over 44 days. There were 96 Indians and 67 foreign cricketers, a total of 163 participants who played the league. According to Sharda Ugra, of India Today, “99 million people or 76% of the total trackable TV audience of 131 million watched the IPL over six weeks”.