The suspense is finally over as the newest owners to join the IPL have been announced, after a day of bidding in Dubai.
RPSG Ventures Ltd. has bagged the ownership rights of the Lucknow franchise for Rs 7,090 crore while private equity firm Irelia Company Pte Ltd. (CVC Capital Partners) has bought the Ahmedabad team for Rs 5,625 crore.
IPL 2022 will feature 74 matches where each team will play 7 home and 7 away games.
According to reports, 22 parties had picked up the tender document worth Rs 10 lakh but only ten parties had placed their bids.
The base price for the new teams was set at Rs 2000 crore.
RPSG Ventures Ltd - Lucknow
The RP-Sanjiv Goenka group is not new to the IPL and had owned a team before this by the name of Rising Pune Supergiant in 2016 and 2017. They along with Gujarat Lions featured as two-season replacements for Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, who were suspended due to their involvement in illegal betting by their respective owners.
In their first year, the finished seventh in the IPL and were runners-up the next year. MS Dhoni, Ben Stokes, Steve Smith were among the big names to have represented that team. Ahead of their second season, they had also dropped Dhoni from captaincy and handed it to Steve Smith.
They also own Indian Super League (ISL) team ATK Mohun Bagan and RPSG Mavericks Kolkata, a team competing in the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) league. Their home stadium in Lucknow, Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, has a capacity of 50,000 spectators.
Irelia Company Pte Ltd. (CVC Capital Partners) - Ahmedabad
Private equity firm CVC Capital, who are the latest to join the IPL bandwagon, are quite active in sports. They have had investments in Rugby, international Volleyball, Formula One and also recently landed a deal in football with La Liga. CVC had owned Formula 1 from 2006 to 2017.
In Spain, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and Real Oviedo have voted against the deal between La Liga and CVC. Even the Spanish FA were displeased with the deal which La Liga were working on.
CVC was part of a consortium last year that had entered into talks to buy a stake in the media business of Italy's top football league, but the deal fell through after objections from some clubs.
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