Sunday, November 30, 2008

Introducing...the Indian Premier League

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The Indian Premier League (also known as the "DLF Indian Premier League" and often abbreviated as IPL), is a Twenty20 cricket competition created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and chaired by the Chairman & Commisoner IPL, BCCI Vice President Lalit Modi. The first season of the Indian Premier League commenced on 18 April 2008, and ended on 1 June 2008 with the victory of the Rajasthan Royals in the final at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai.

Teams play each other two times in a round robin system, with equal number of home and away matches. The top four ranking sides will progress to the semi-finals.

The inaugural 2008 tournament started on 18 April 2008 in Bangalore and lasted for 46 days, with 59 matches scheduled, out of which 58 took place and 1 was washed out due to rain

Television rights and sponsorship:

The IPL will bring the BCCI income of US$1 billion, over a period of five to ten years, reinforcing its status as the richest board in world cricket.

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%.

Television rights:

On 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.

20% 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. Sony-WSG then re-sold parts of the broadcasting rights geographically to other companies.

Rules:
The official rules for the tournament are here. Some of the Team composition rules are:

  • Total squad strength of 16 players plus one physio and a coach.
  • No more than 8 foreign players in the squad and at most 4 in the playing XI.
  • A minimum of 4 local players must be included in each team.
  • No fewer than 4 players from the BCCI under-22 pool in each team.

    The players accorded "icon" status are: Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag . The total spending cap for a franchisee in the first player auction was US $5m. Under-22 players are to be remunerated with a minimum annual salary of US $20,000 while for others it is US $50,000. Icon players are to be paid 15% more than the highest paid player in their respective teams.

    Franchises:
    The winning bidders for the eight franchises were announced on 24 January 2008. While the total base price for auction was US $400 million, the auction fetched US $723.59 million. The official list of franchise owners announced and the winning bids were as follows.

  • Mumbai Indians
    Owned by: Reliance Industries Limited (Mukesh Ambani)($111.9 million)

  • Royal Challengers Bangalore
    Owned by: UB group (Vijay Mallya)($111.6 million)

  • Hyderabad Deccan Chargers
    Owned by: Deccan Chronicle (T Venkatarami Reddy)($107 million)

  • Chennai Super Kings
    Owned by: India Cements (N Srinivasan)($91 million)

  • Delhi Daredevils
    Owned by: GMR Holdings (Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao)($84 million)

  • Kings XI Punjab
    Owned by: Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia (Bombay Dyeing), Karan Paul (Apeejay Surendera Group) and Mohit Burman (Dabur)($76 million)

  • Kolkata Knight Riders
    Owned by: Red Chillies Entertainment (Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla Mehta and Jai Mehta)($75.09 million)

  • Rajasthan Royals
    Owned by: Emerging Media (A.R Jha, Lachlan Murdoch, Suresh Chellaram)($67 million)

    Future Expansion:
    After the success of the first season, it has been reported that four new franchises will join the IPL in 2010-11, increasing the total number of teams to 12. The new confirmed franchises will be based in Ahmedabad and Kanpur, with Anil Ambani's name associated with the ownership of the Ahmedabad franchise, and Sahara Group is touted as the possible suitors to buy the Kanpur franchise. Other cities being linked with getting a franchisee are Patna-Ranchi joined franchisee or a team from the North-East to promote the sport in the region and possibly one team from the north-western states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand. A second Mumbai or Delhi team has also been proposed for future expansion of two teams to take place in the 2012-13 season.


    Expansions- 2010-11 Season( 4 new teams)-

  • IPL Ahmedabad
  • IPL Kanpur
  • Any two from the following-

    1. A Patna-Ranchi joined franchisee 2. A team from the North-East 3. A team from the north-western states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand

    The unselected team from the 3 will be considered for the next set of expansions in the 2012-13 season.

    2012-13 Season( 2 new teams)-

  • The unselected 3rd team from above
  • Possibly a second franchisee from Delhi's suburbs( Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, NOIDA and Greater NOIDA) and New Delhi combined
  • Possibly a second franchisee from Mumbai or a new franchisee from Pune.

    Cheerleaders:
    The IPL has been criticised by a few politicians and feminists for bringing in foreign cheerleaders, which is seen by many to not be in the traditional spirit of the game, as well as being against some Indian sensibilities. Two cheerleaders from London were asked to leave the ground at Mohali “because of the colour of their skin” by Wizcraft International Entertainment, which handles the team Kings XI Punjab. Ellesha Newton and Sherinne Anderson, both from London and of African ancestry were allegedly barred from entering the stadium by employees of Wizcraft International Entertainment on the pretext that "people don’t like dark girls here". Both the girls also allege that an employee referred to them with the racial slur ″nigger″.

    Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said a probe would be initiated by the IPL only if the two women officially complain to IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.

    BCCI and IPL officials are surprised that the two cheerleaders did not complain about the alleged racist behaviour while they were in India and spoke about it only after they returned to London.

    "We have not received any complaint from any cheerleaders that they were asked to leave by the Mohali-based Kings XI Punjab franchise recently because of the colour of their skin," BCCI joint secretary M.P. Pandove said in Mohali.

    See also:

  • England - Twenty20 Cup

  • India - Indian Cricket League

  • Pakistan - Pakistan Super League

  • South Africa - Standard Bank Pro 20 Series

  • Sri Lanka - Inter-Provincial Twenty20

  • Australia - KFC Twenty20 Big Bash

  • New Zealand - State Twenty20

  • West Indies - Stanford 20/20

  • Zimbabwe - Metropolitan Bank Twenty20

  • Kenya - National Elite League Twenty20

  • Canada - Scotiabank National T20 Championship



  • Indian Premier League links:

  • Official site for Indian Premier League

  • Indian Premier League at Cricinfo


  • Photobucket



    *Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.org and owners of pictures and videos used.



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