The newly formed version of cricket, Twenty20 has raked in interest from varied sectors ranging from Bollywood to media and business, the Twenty20 Indian Premier League (IPL) getting bids of over Rs 2,800 crore ($723.6 million).
IPL, promoted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said that highest winning bid of $111.9 million was made by Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, who bagged the Mumbai rights.
The bid was to own teams in any of eight of the 12 cities where the T20 matches are to be played.
The second highest bid came in from UB Group head Vijay Mallya at $111.6 million, who bagged the bid for his home city, Bangalore. He had also bid for Mumbai, but was pipped by Ambani.
Deccan Chronicle bagged the rights for Hyderabad at $107.01 million, while N Srinivasan, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director on behalf of India Cements, won the bid for Chennai while GMR Holdings won Delhi.
Bombay Dyeing scion Ness Wadia and actor Preity Zinta, Karan Paul and Mohit Burman (Dabur family) formed a consortium to win the bid for Mohali. The 'Bollywood' team of Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla and her husband and industrialist Jay Mehta won Kolkata.
Jaipur was won by Emerging Media group, while infrastructure company GMR Holdings won the Delhi franchise for $84 million.
"It is a historic day as corporates are convinced about the product and have shown their appetite and passion for the game of cricket. The IPL franchisees will be paying their bid amounts over a period of 10 years," BCCI Vice-President and Chairman & Commisioner of IPL Lalit Modi said.
The base price for owing a team for 10 years was set at $50 million. The inaugural event will be held in April this year.
The league is an effort to counter an unofficial Indian Twenty20 league, which began late last year.
"United Spirits will now use this as an active promotional platform for all our brands," Mallya said.
Eleven companies --- some a consortium of individuals --- were in the race to own teams from a choice of 12 cities where the franchises would be based.
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