The Business of IPL – Money Minting Mantra of Indian Cricket

Cricket has got its money minting machine, its own kuberan in the form of the Indian Premier League and hence, the epicenter of world cricket is no longer in London or Sharjah or even Australia but it is India.The magic began in Jan 2008 when eight teams were auctioned for a whooping sum of $724 million…. A look at the business of how IPL operated and developed into a major cricketing league set to transform the way cricket is played all over the world.The shift in paradigm is so huge that many players have already leaving their national teams to focus on the IPL…. Knowing that the ticketing revenue would be lesser this time around, the moves like having strategic breaks of 7.5 mins in mid of each innings which was to be filled by commercials was a smart move and it paid off in terms of revenue if not in terms of cricketing virtue. All corporates chose this time as the moment to cash in. Vodafone went out all guns blazing with its zoo zoo ads and 15 of them had the audiences in splits.Though cricket is played in 104 nations across the world for a period of 165 years, before IPL, the professional leagues had never truly looked into cricket from a business perspective…. But private franchise ownership opened a new chapter in the history of cricket and it has changed cricket like never before and the change is a permenant one.As for the after effects of this, the third season is going to be bigger with more teams joining.