BCCI to issue tender to own new IPL team

The detailed terms and conditions governing the submission and evaluation of bids including eligibility requirements, process for submissions of bids, proposed new teams’ rights, and obligations, etc. are contained in the ‘Invitation to Tender’ (“ITT”) which will be made available on receipt of payment of a non-refundable fee of ₹10 lakh with taxes. The ITT will be available for purchase till 5 October, 2021, BCCI said in a statement.

“Any interested party wishing to submit a bid is required to purchase the ITT. However, only those satisfying the eligibility criteria set out in the ITT and subject to the other terms and conditions set out therein, shall be eligible to bid. It is clarified that merely purchasing this ITT does not entitle any person to bid,” said Jay Shah, secretary, BCCI.

It has been learned that the tender to bid for new franchise involves the following aspects, ₹3,000 should be the valuation of the company/consortium bidding for a potential franchise; Close to ₹1700 crore (the upper price at which BCCI last sold a franchise – to Sahara in 2010) could possibly be the base price for the bidding to begin; it’ll be a closed bid with no technical aspect to it. The potential bidder can write to the BCCI requesting clarifications in the tender document – one that will be reverted to over the next month. BCCI will list the number of cities available in the present settings for potential bidders to select from; and finally, the winning bids, upon submission, will be announced around the time when the IPL 2021 edition’s knockouts are in progress.

The two new team would likely be from Lucknow and Pune. Both these cities seem more suitable owing to the bigger capacity venues, i.e. Narendra Modi Stadium ( with a capacity of 1,10,000) and Ekana Cricket Stadium (50,000) respectively.

Among the rumoured groups planning to purchase a franchise happen to be Adani Group and RPG Sanjeev Goenka Group among others.