The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is likely to get richer by at least Rs 4000 crore with some of the top businesses of the country expected to bid bullishly to own the Women's IPL (WIPL) teams that are expected to be auctioned this Wednesday. Media reports suggest per team the Indian Cricket Board could get somewhere around 500-600 crore.
"WIPL has huge potential but most of the legacy teams would like to mix optimism with pragmatism," an industry insider was quoted as saying as per a PTI report.
"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.
Over 30 companies have purchased the bid documents worth INR 5 lakh. These not only include the 10 existing owners of the men's IPL teams but also massive corporates such as the Adani Group, Torrent group, Haldiram's Prabhuji, Capri Global, Kotak and Aditya Birla Group.
Some of the abovementioned names had also shown intertest to buy a men's IPL team when the BCCI invited bids for the sale of two new franchises in 2021.
Mumbai Indians, Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders already have multiple teams participating in leagues around the world and thus could consider having one in the Women's IPL as well.
Per year revenue for a Women's IPL team could be around INR 50 crore in initial years
"Let's say, a franchise makes a winning bid of Rs 500 crore for a period of five years. Now that's Rs 100 crore committed straightaway for each of next five years," a former IPL franchisee official explained in the PTI report.
"The BCCI distributes its media broadcast revenue which is one of the major earning chunk. The second is a share from BCCI's central pool of sponsorship. The third is a franchisee's own set of sponsorship earnings. Fourth is gate sales, money earned from tickets," he added highlighting how the franchises earn their money.
He explained that the per year earning for a Women's IPL team could be around INR 50 crore with the BCCI set to share 80 per cent of media rights money with the teams, which comes down to somewhere around 30 crore per team along with a share of central sponsorship which will be another Rs 15 to Rs 18 crore per year.
Gate sales are not expected to fetch considerable earning in the inaugural season of the competition but could grow in the years to come. With the cumulative expenses per year estimated around Rs 128 to Rs 130 crore per team, initially the teams could have to bear the losses of Rs 50 crore, implying an advantage to the teams who already have men's IPL teams as they profits from the men's teams which they can afford to lose here, in view of the longer benefits.
(With Inputs from PTI)