Women’s IPL rights sold for $573m

The rights for the five Women’s Premier League teams were sold by BCCI for a total of USD 573 million approximately (INR 4669.99 crore) in an auction held in Mumbai on Wednesday.

BCCI organised an auction to sell the rights for the five teams to be featured in the tournament. The tournament will be known as the Women’s Premier League (WPL), and the teams will be based in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow respectively.

The owners of Men’s IPL teams Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bengaluru won the rights for the respective WPL teams. Adani group and Capri Global won the rights for Ahmedabad and Lucknow respectively.

The Ahmedabad team was sold for the highest price: Indian Rupees 1289 crore (USD 158 million), followed by Mumbai (INR 912.99 crore/USD 111 million approx), Bengaluru (INR 901 crore/USD 110 million approx), Delhi (INR 810 crore/USD 99.35 million approx) and Lucknow (INR 757 crore/USD 92.85 million approx).

BCCI was elated by the way the auction went. Jay Shah, the secretary of BCCI called it ‘another red-letter day’.

“Today is a historic day in cricket as the bidding for teams of inaugural WPL broke the records of the inaugural Men’s IPL in 2008! Congratulations to the winners as we garnered Rs.4669.99 Cr in total bid,” he tweeted.

Arun Dhumal, the chairman of IPL said, “The responsibility lies on our shoulders to see to it that the faith that has been deposed on BCCI, we work extra hard to make sure that this Women’s Premier League turns out to be at par with men’s league, if not better. We take it as a challenge and we will leave no stone unturned to make sure that what we are successful in achieving for WPL what we have done for IPL.”

Eight Bangladesh players have been included in the WPL auction, including national team skipper Nigar Sultana Joty and Under-19 stars Marufa Akter and Shorna Akter.