Description
The Indian Premier League (often abbreviated as IPL), is a Twenty20 cricket competition initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and supervised by BCCI Vice President Lalit Modi, Chairman & Commissioner for IPL. It includes 8 teams or "franchises" consisting of players from different countries. The first season of the Indian Premier League commenced on 18 April 2008./nThe third season of IPL started in India on 12 March 2010 and is due to last over a period of 45 days. Five new venues, Cuttack, Nagpur, Vishakhapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala, have been added. Other changes include removal of icon players and granting permission to players who were involved in the Indian Cricket League to play in the tournament. Also, it will be the first sporting event ever to be broadcast live on the popular video sharing website./nIn March 2010, the IPL invited bids for 2 more teams, but the BCCI president and secretary canceled the process, due to a lack of bids.
Player signings
Main articles: Royal Challengers Bangalore, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils, Deccan Chargers, Kolkata Knight Riders, Kings XI Punjab, Mumbai Indians, and Rajasthan Royals/nThe first players' auctions were held on 20 February 2008. The IPL placed icon status on a select few marquee Indian players. These players were Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, and Virender Sehwag. VVS Laxman initially named an icon player, later voluntarily opted out of his icon status to give his team (Deccan Chargers) more money to bid for players. For the second season, auctions were also held, but free signings taking place in the off-season by franchises led to calls for a draft-like system where the lowest ranked teams would be given a first opportunity to sign players.
Television rights and sponsorships/nThe IPL is predicted to bring the BCCI income of approximately US$1.6 billion, over a period of five to ten years. All of these revenues are directed to a central pool, 40% of which will go to IPL itself, 54% to franchisees and 6% as prize money. The money will be distributed in these proportions until 2017, after which the share of IPL will be 50%, franchisees 45% and prize money 5%. The IPL signed up Kingfisher Airlines as the official umpire partner for the series in a Rs. 106 crore (1.06 billion) deal. This deal sees the Kingfisher Airlines brand on all umpires' uniforms and also on the giant screens during third umpire decisions.
Television rights/nOn 15 January 2008 it was announced that a consortium consisting of India's Sony Entertainment Television network and Singapore-based World Sport Group secured the global broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League. The record deal has a duration of ten years at a cost of US $1.026 billion. As part of the deal, the consortium will pay the BCCI US $918 million for the television broadcast rights and US $108 million for the promotion of the tournament. This deal was challenged in the Bombay High Court by IPL, and got the ruling on its side. After losing the battle in court, Sony Entertainment Television signed a new contract with BCCI with Sony Entertainment Television paying a staggering Rs. 8700 crores (87 billion) for 10 years. One of the reasons for payment of this huge amount is seen as the money required to subsidize IPL's move to South Africa which will be substantially more than the previous IPL. IPL had agreed to subsidize the difference in operating cost between India and South Africa as it decided to move to the African nation after the security concerns raised because of its coincidence with India's general elections./n20% of these proceeds would go to IPL, 8% as prize money and 72% would be distributed to the franchisees. The money would be distributed in these proportions until 2012, after which the IPL would go public and list its shares./nSony-WSG then re-sold parts of the broadcasting rights geographically to other companies. Below is a summary of the broadcasting rights around the world./nOn 4 March 2010 ITV announced it had secured the United Kingdom television rights for the 2010 Indian Premier League. ITV will televise 59 of the 60 IPL matches on its ITV4 free to air channel