Adani, Torrent and Haldiram's look to acquire teams in Women's IPL

BCCI set to earn up to Rs 4K cr from auctions

Some of the country’s top men’s Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises will participate in the auction of teams for the Women’s IPL (WIPL) to be held on Wednesday.

According to executives at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), teams like Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders, SunRisers Hyderabad, Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Punjab Kings have put in technical bids on Monday, showing their formal interest in owning a WIPL team.

According to market experts, the teams are expected to shell out in the “range of Rs 500-600 crore” per team in the closed-bid auction.

“WIPL has huge potential, but most of the legacy teams would like to mix optimism with pragmatism,” an industry insider, who has previously worked on the men’s IPL team bid, told PTI ahead of auction.

“Expect a few bids in the range of Rs 500 crore upwards; Rs 800-crore-plus could be a bit ambitious, but BCCI won’t complain,” he added.

The women’s edition of the IPL, for the uninitiated, will have five teams in all and will be played in March. Wednesday will see interested players putting in financial bids in sealed envelopes, which will be opened on the same day by the BCCI.

Notable absentees on Monday included Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Gujarat Titans, and Lucknow Super Giants, who did not put in technical bids, it is reliably learnt.

Calls and text messages to CSK Chief Executive Officer Kasi Viswanathan elicited no response till the time of going to press. Gujarat Titans Chief Operating Officer Arvinder Singh said that the franchise wanted to focus on the Men's IPL for now. "We will look for participation in the WIPL in the future," he said. Officials at Lucknow Super Giants were not immediately available for comment.

The BCCI is all set to get richer by up to Rs 4,000 crore, with some of the top business houses set to bid aggressively for the five WIPL teams that would be auctioned on Wednesday.
 

Among interested players, companies such as Haldiram’s, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Capri Global, and Adani Group, among others, have submitted technical bids on Monday, said persons in the know. These firms were part of over 30 interested entities that picked up the tender documents last week for the upcoming WIPL team auction.

The key requirement for interested parties is a networth of Rs 1,000 crore, the tender document says, although the BCCI has not set a base price for the team auction.

Bids will be accepted for a 10-year period. 
 

According to market insiders, there are two principles on which these bids are placed by the business houses.

The first one is ‘return on investment’, which is the core principle of any business. It is profit on what an entity spends.

The second one isn’t a business principle as such but in the business community they call it the ‘return of ego’.This is something where some of the biggest business names are ready to shell out any amount if they have their eyes on buying a particular property - even if it takes five to seven years for touching the break-even point.

Last week, the cricket governing body selected Viacom18 as the official broadcaster of the WIPL for both television and digital media for a five-year period in a deal valued at Rs 951 crore. The per-match value was Rs 7.09 crore, below the Rs 10-11 crore per-match value that the BCCI was eyeing from the sale of media rights for 2023-27.

According to BCCI executives, the first three years of WIPL will see teams play 22 matches each in the Twenty20 tournament. The number of matches will increase to around 34 in the next two years of the tournament as the league grows in popularity, they said.

• Firms are expected to shell out Rs 500-Rs 600 cr per team in the auction
• More than 30 firms have bought the bid documents worth Rs 5 lakh
• Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai’s IPL teams have also shown interest in buying teams
• Key requirement for interested parties is a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore
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