Indian Premier League

Facts

Foundation

In 2007, the Indian Cricket League was founded, with funding provided by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. The ICL was not recognized by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) or the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the BCCI were not pleased with its committee members joining the ICL executive board. To prevent players from joining the ICL, the BCCI increased the prize money in their own domestic tournaments and also imposed lifetime bans on players joining the ICL, which was considered a rebel league by the board. Businessman and cricket executive, Lalit Modi, was tasked by the BCCI to start a new Twenty20 league that would rival the Indian Cricket League. In early 2008, the BCCI announced the launch of the Indian Premier League, a new franchise based T20 league, which is among the first of its kind in the cricketing world. The league was based on the Premier League of England and the NBA in the United States.

In order to decide the owners for the new league, an auction was held on 24 January 2008 with the total base prices of the franchises costing around $400 million. At the end of the auction, the winning bidders were announced, as well as the cities the teams would be based in: Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mohali, and Mumbai. In the end, the franchises were all sold for a total of $723.59 million. The Indian Cricket League soon folded in 2008.

Expansions and terminations

On 21 March 2010, it was announced that two new franchises – Pune Warriors India and Kochi Tuskers Kerala – would join the league before the fourth season in 2011. Sahara Adventure Sports Group bought the Pune franchise for $370 million while Rendezvous Sports World bought the Kochi franchise for $333.3 million. However, one year later, on 11 November 2011, it was announced that the Kochi Tuskers Kerala side would be terminated following the side breaching the BCCI's terms of conditions.

Then, on 14 September 2012, following the team not being able to find new owners, the BCCI announced that the 2009 champions, the Deccan Chargers, would be terminated. The next month, on 25 October, an auction was held to see who would be the owner of the replacement franchise, with Sun TV Network winning the bid for the Hyderabad franchise. The team would be named Sunrisers Hyderabad.

On 14 June 2015, it was announced that two-time champions, Chennai Super Kings, and the inaugural season champions, Rajasthan Royals, would be suspended for two seasons following their role in a match-fixing and betting scandal. Then, on 8 December 2015, following an auction, it was revealed that Pune and Rajkot would replace Chennai and Rajasthan for two seasons. The teams are the Rising Pune Supergiants and the Gujarat Lions.

Tournament format

Currently, with eight teams, each team plays each other twice in a home-and-away round-robin format in the league phase. At the conclusion of the league stage, the top four teams will qualify for the Playoffs. The top two teams from the league phase will play against each other in the first Qualifying match, with the winner going straight to the IPL final and the loser getting another chance to qualify for the IPL final by playing the second Qualifying match. Meanwhile, the third and fourth place teams from league phase play against each other in an eliminator match and the winner from that match will play the loser from the first Qualifying match. The winner of the second Qualifying match will move onto the final to play the winner of the first Qualifying match in the IPL Final match, where the winner will be crowned the Indian Premier League champions.

Tournament seasons and results

Out of the thirteen teams those have played in the Indian Premier League since its inception, three teams have won the competition twice each and three other teams have won it once each. The Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, and Mumbai Indians are the most successful teams in league's history in terms of the number of titles won. The other three teams who have won the tournament are the Deccan Chargers, Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad. The Chennai Super Kings is the only team to have won the tournament and then defended it the next season, winning in 2010 and winning again in 2011. Also the Chennai Super Kings has the better win-loss ratio among all the teams and have qualified to semifinals/Play-offs in every season the team participated.

The current champions are Sunrisers Hyderabad who beat Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final of the 2016 season at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium to secure their maiden title.

Tournament and salary rules

A team can acquire players through five ways: The annual auction, signing domestic players, signing uncapped players, trading players, and signing replacements. In the trading window, a player can only be traded with his consent, with the franchise paying the difference if any between the old and new contract. If the new contract is worth more than the older one, the difference is shared between the player and the franchise selling the player.

Some of the team composition rules are as follows:

IPL games utilise television timeouts and hence there is no time limit in which teams must complete their innings. However, a penalty may be imposed if the umpires find teams misusing this privilege. Each team is given a two-and-a-half-minute "strategic timeout" during each innings; one must be taken by the bowling team between the 6th and 10th overs, and one by the batting team between the 11th and 16th overs.

Salary cap

The total spending cap for a franchise in the first player auction was US$5 million. Under-22 players are to be remunerated with a minimum annual salary of US$20,000, whereas for others the minimum was US$50,000.

Prize money

The 2015 season of the IPL offered a total prize money of ₹40 crore (US$5.9 million), with the winning team netting ₹15 crore (US$2.2 million). The first and second runners up received 10 and 7.5 crores, respectively, with the fourth placed team also winning 7.5 crores. The others teams are not awarded any prize money. The IPL rules mandate that half of the prize money must be distributed among the players.

Orange Cap

The Orange Cap is awarded for the top run-scorer in the IPL during a season. It is an ongoing competition with the leader wearing the cap throughout the tournament until the final game, with the eventual winner keeping the cap for the season.

Purple Cap

The Purple Cap is awarded for the top wicket-taker in the IPL. It is an ongoing competition with the leader wearing the cap throughout the tournament until the final game, with the eventual winner keeping the cap for the season.

Broadcast

On 17 January 2008 it was announced that a consortium consisting of India's Sony Entertainment Television (Set Max) network and Singapore-based World Sport Group secured the global broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League. The record deal has a duration of ten years at a cost of US$1.026 billion. As part of the deal, the consortium will pay the BCCI US$918 million for the television broadcast rights and US$108 million for the promotion of the tournament. The initial plan was for 20% of these proceeds would go to IPL, 8% as prize money and 72% would be distributed to the franchisees from 2008 until 2012, after which the IPL would go public and list its shares. However, in March 2010, IPL decided not to go public and list its shares. Sony-WSG then re-sold parts of the broadcasting rights geographically to other companies. Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has raked in Rs 1,200 crore as advertising revenue from the ninth edition of the tournament, a growth of twenty percent from last year. The broadcaster had mopped up Rs. 1,000 crore as advertising revenue in IPL 2015.

IPL Governing Council

The IPL Governing Council is responsible for all the functions of the tournament. The members are Rajeev Shukla, Ajay Shirke, Sourav Ganguly, Anurag Thakur, Anirudh Chaudhry. In Jan 2016, the Supreme Court appointed Lodha Committee to recommend separate governing bodies for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Indian Premier League (IPL), where Justice RM Lodha suggested a One State- One Member pattern for the board.