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”.

Subhash Chandra, Commissioner, ICL

Subhash Chandra Goel, the Chairman of Essel Group, launched a private cricket league in April 2007. This new entity is called the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and would follow the Twenty20 format. The first tournament of the league started on November 30, 2007 and concluded on December 16, 2007. The tournament was played at Mayajaal Cricket Ground in Chennai, Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Gurgaon, near Delhi, Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad and Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Panchkula, near Chandigarh. The traditional cricket venues of cricket in India were denied to ICL, which incidentally, are not owned by the BCCI.

Subhash Chandra was born on November 30, 1950, in Hissar, a major city of Haryana. He left formal education after 12th and never attended college. Instead, he joined the family business of trading and exporting rice. He was only nineteen years old then. Subhash Chandra started a vegetable oil unit which was an instant success. In 1981, he founded Essel Packaging Limited, after visiting a packaging exhibition. It was later merged with the Swiss group, Propack AG and was renamed, Essel Propack Limited, the largest speciality packaging company in the world.

In 1991, viewers in India were under the firm grip of Doordarshan, the state-controlled TV network. Subhash Chandra was the first in India to understand the huge business potential of satellite television. He launched the first private satellite TV station in India. Zee TV started on October 2, 1992, followed by Zee News, Zee Cinema and Music Asia. Today Zee TV is the most popular television network in India with more than 500 million viewers in 120 countries.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was established in 1929. It is the central governing body for cricket in India. Technically, it is a private club and is not required to make it’s finances public. BCCI generally uses government-owned stadiums across the country at a nominal annual rent. Central Government’s minister for agriculture, Sharad Powar, is the current President of the board. Lalit Modi, the chairman and commissioner of Indian Premier League, is the vice president of BCCI. Niranjan Rasiklal Shah, a former opening batsman from Saurashtra, is the secretary of the cricket board. The BCCI is the richest cricket board in the world.

Cricket was introduced in India by the British in 1720s. The first cricket match in India was played between two teams of visiting sailors at a seaport in Kutch in 1725. The first Indians to play the game of cricket in India were the minority community of Parsis in Bombay. They founded the Orient Cricket Club in 1848, the first non-British cricket club in Bombay, India. In 1892, an annual cricket match was played between Parsis and the Europeans. Hindus entered the fray in 1907, what came to be known as a triangular cricket tournament. Muslims joined the game in 1912 in the Bombay Quadrangular. The four Palwankar brothers were the biggest Indian cricket stars.

Indian Premier League

Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional Twenty20 cricket competition created and promoted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and backed by International Cricket Council (ICC). IPL is the brainchild of Lalit Kumar Modi, who is also the chairman and commissioner of the league. Indian Premier League is modeled along the lines of club football in Europe, specially the English Premier League. Lalit Modi has claimed that the idea to monetise Indian Cricket was in his mind since the mid 1990s, but before he could actually implement his plans, Subhash Chandra of Zee Television started an unofficial version called Indian Cricket League (ICL).