Cricket South Africa has set goal to build biggest franchise-based league after IPL: Graeme Smith

SA20 is Cricket South Africa’s franchise-based cricket league that has been created on the lines of the IPL.

“IPL is the strongest and biggest league in the game. We want to grow the biggest league outside of India. That’s the objective,” he said, during an interaction on the sidelines of an event organised by Viacom18 Sports in Mumbai.

Viacom18 Sports has bagged the media rights to telecast/live stream SA20 in India for 10 years. Smith hopes that the SA20 league will appeal to the Indian audiences due to a favourable time zone and affinity of Indian fans towards South African cricketers.
SA20 has been billed as a miniIPL since all the six teams are owned by IPL franchise owners. The teams are: Durban’s Super Giants (RPSG Sports), Jo’burg Super Kings (India Cements), MI Cape Town (Reliance), Paarl Royals (Rajasthan Royals), Pretoria Capitals (JSW Sports) and Sunrisers Eastern Cape (Sun TV).

Smith said the IPL franchise owners fit the bill to own the SA20 teams due to their expertise in running cricket franchises.

“The conscious choice was to attract the best type of partners to the game. IPL team owners understand franchise cricket due to their ownership of IPL teams. They will bring their expertise and business acumen to South African cricket,” he added.

Smith said the league would help the franchise owners to break even as soon as possible so that they could invest more money into cricket. SA20’s first goal is to build the league in South Africa, he said. “We want to make sure that its success there and if it’s a success there, it will grow,” Smith said, while noting that India would be a key market for SA20.