text: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Wednesday further extend the date for purchasing the ‘Invitation to Tender’ (ITT) document for the two new Indian Premier League (IPL) teams, which will be inducted from the next season, to October 20, 2021.
  Issuing a statement, the board said that interested parties can purchase the ITT document on receipt of payment of the “non-refundable tender fee of Rs 10 lakh plus any applicable Goods and Services Tax”.
  All other terms contained in the Invitation document shall be applicable, said the BCCI.
  The IPL Governing Council had on August 31 this year announced the release of tender to “own and operate” two new IPL teams, which will compete in the 2022 edition of the lucrative tournament.
  Subsequently, the date was extended to October 10 and now the date has been further extended by 10 days.
  “Interested parties are requested to email at ittipl2021@bcci.tv to get further details for purchasing the ITT. The email requesting the ITT should have the subject line ‘ITT for the Right to Own and Operate One of Two Proposed New IPL Teams’,” said a BCCI 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,” the statement added.
  “The BCCI reserves the right to cancel or amend the bidding process at any stage without providing any reason,” said the statement.
  Significantly, the Indian board will make massive financial gain from the auction of two new franchises for which, a base price of Rs 2000 crore has been set for each franchise.
  After auctioning the two new franchises, the BCCI will be receiving a huge amount of Rs 4,000 crore.
  Before the auctions are held, the board has already clarified that any bids below the minimum amount of Rs 2000 crore will be directly rejected and no reduction will be made to the minimum bid amount even in the event of a change in the format of the league.
  The condition applies even if the number of matches to be played gets reduced.
  After the auction, the cash-rich IPL will feature of 10 teams and a minimum of 74 matches from the next 2022 season and further.
  The Indian board will not only be benifitted through the auctioning alone but will also receive a higher fee from Star India, which owns the IPL media rights, for the 2022 season.
  Notably, the 2022 season will be the last and final season of the current media rights cycle, which the Star had acquired in 2017 for a period of five years aftre paying Rs 16347.5 crore.
  Meanwhile, auction for the next cycle of IPL media rights is also expected to be held in early 2022.
  As per the agreement between board and Star India, the board had received Rs 4086.87 crore of the media rights payment in the first year.
  An amount of Rs 3065.15 crore was set for the subsequent years.
  With the number of matches set to see an increase in IPL 2022, Star will likley have to pay an additional Rs 715.2 crore next year as it pays Rs 51.08 crore per match as per the present deal.
  Significantly, six Indian cities, namely – Ahmedabad (Narendra Modi Stadium), Cuttack (Barabati Stadium), Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium), Guwahati (Barsapara Cricket Ground), Indore (Holkar Stadium), Lucknow (Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium) have been shortlisted for the auction.