The Glazer family that owns football club Manchester United has reportedly shown interest in the two new IPL franchises and have picked up the ITT (Invitation to Tender) which was floated by BCCI through a private equity firm. 20 October was the last date to pick up the tender documents and a number of other companies had also shown interest which includes Adani Group, Torrent Pharma, Aurobindo Pharma, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, Hindustan Times Media, Jindal Steel (led by Naveen Jindal), entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala and three private equity players.
The ITT issued by the Indian cricket board has some strict clauses. For instance, you can only bid if you have average turnover of Rs 3,000 crore or a personal net worth of Rs 2,500 crore. BCCI had to rework these clauses after certain potential bidders made a request to lower the value so that they can be eligible to bid.
Also, you can buy the ITT or submit the bid only on one condition: you have to set up a company in India if you win. As of now there is no confirmation that the Glazer’s will indeed bid. “So, technically, overseas investors are eligible to submit a bid if they meet these conditions. We don’t really know whether Man U owners will come to the bidding table. What we certainly know is that they’ve shown interest," A Times Of India report quoted sources as saying.
Meanwhile news agency ANI reported that interest from Glazer’s actually played a key role in Board delaying the deadline for ITT. “Well yes, it is true that they have shown interest and that may be one of the reasons why the dateline was extended by the BCCI. IPL is not just restricted to India, it is a global entity now," the source pointed.
“A lot of people usually pick these tender documents to study and gather information that tends to be otherwise very useful from a larger industry perspective. For instance, buying a bid document will tell me more about what the BCCI is planning next, in terms of the league expansion, etc. For instance, if Disney has bought the tender document to buy the franchise, it doesn’t mean Disney is interested in owning a franchise. It will study the document because it has to plan its own media rights landscape,” the source added.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is set to become a 10-team affair from 2022 after the Indian cricket board approved a proposal to add two more franchises to the world’s richest Twenty20 competition.
The eight-team league, with an estimated brand value of $6.8 billion, drew record television and digital viewership this year despite being staged in the United Arab Emirates following the COVID-19 surge in India. “We have received an in-principle approval to add two more teams after talking to all the stakeholders,” Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) treasurer Arun Singh Dhumal told Reuters after the AGM in Ahmedabad.