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The Collection Wed, 19 Mar 25 |
Multiple stories, multiple perspectives, one theme worth your time—every week. |
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Starting this Saturday, for the next two months, not many Indians will have to worry about what to tune into for their evening screentime.
The Indian Premier League (IPL), whose 18th edition kicks off on 22 March, continues to grow bigger each year. Its latest player auction in November broke all previous records in terms of player remuneration—with five deals featuring among the ten most expensive player purchases ever in the tournament’s history. Sponsorship revenue, too, is expected to go up by 20–30% over the previous edition, with teams reporting that more brands than ever want their way in. Gujarat Titans, for instance, has signed on 32 brands for this year’s tournament.
Some 500–600 million viewers are expected to watch the ten teams battle it out for glory. And for fans and players on the field alike, there’s only one thing it all boils down to.
Who wins?
Except, when it comes to building a successful IPL business or campaign, who wins hardly matters at all.
In this week’s edition of The Collection, we dive into the business of the IPL and sports in general, seen through the lens of The Ken’s multi-faceted reportage on the topic.
Winning off the field
If you haven’t gotten past the “winning doesn’t matter” bit yet, let me point you towards a 2021 story by my colleague Seetharaman G.
In the IPL, profitability is undoubtedly divorced from winning. And that is largely a function of the lucrative deals the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which organises the IPL, has managed to land for the league, both for media rights and sponsorships.
Winning is not a prerequisite for quoting a high price tag for team sponsorships, either. Royal Challengers Bangalore’s sponsorship rates are next only to Mumbai Indians and CSK, even though RCB’s biggest achievement is reaching the IPL final three times.
Over three years later, this reality remains largely the same (and so does RCB’s biggest achievement). I’d urge you to read the piece to understand exactly why there’s no link between winning and turning a profit.
Why being a loser is just fine for IPL teams’ bottom line
Winning is not a prerequisite to running a profitable franchise or commanding a sponsorship premium in the IPL. Just ask PBKS or RCB. But the teams with the healthiest balance sheets—MI and CSK—are also the IPL’s top performers
There are many ways IPL teams make money, but the biggest channels are central rights, team sponsorships, tickets and gate revenue, and merchandise.
Central rights, which constitutes the biggest chunk of an IPL team’s income, largely consists of revenue from IPL title sponsorships and media rights shared with teams by the cricket board. For the five seasons from 2024–2028, the Tata Group has shelled out a cool Rs 2,500 crore to be the title sponsor—50% of which goes to India’s cricket board, which organises the league, and the rest divided among the teams, of which only a very small component is based on league rankings.
As for media rights, the price was a whopping Rs 48,000 crore for 2023–2027—40% of which reportedly goes to the franchises. Both TV and digital media rights now belong to Jiostar, a joint venture between Reliance Jio and Disney Star.
For Reliance, which is in the process of building a rather massive broadcasting empire, IPL rights are no laughing matter.
My colleague Praveen Gopal Krishnan wrote about Reliance’s broadcast business strategy in great detail in a July 2023 edition of The Nutgraf.
Disney leaves Jio the keys to the kingdom
How Jio’s visual synergy map mirrors that of Disney from 60 years ago
Given the amount of money and eyeballs at stake, it also shouldn’t surprise you that IPL ad deals involve quite a bit of drama.
Just last month, we reported that Hindustan Unilever, India’s largest FMCG company, butted heads with Disney+ Hotstar over IPL ads, noting that digital ads were failing to drive proper results, and that customers had complained about being shown the same ads repeatedly. “Some of them were shown the same ads as many as 150 times within a week. It’s almost like spamming a user with the same ad,” a senior HUL executive told my colleague Rounak Kumar Gunjan.
Why did this happen? What does it mean for brands, platforms, and viewers? The story is a must-read if you are keen on finding out the answers.
HUL and Disney+ Hotstar are at war over IPL ads
What happens when a big spender feels it’s not getting what it signed up for during the largest streaming event of the year?
Reliance’s ambitions aren’t restricted to just broadcasting and media either. Even as early as 2021, the owner of the five-time IPL winner Mumbai Indians had a much, much larger vision across sports—athletics, cricket, football… and maybe even the Olympics.
Reliance’s unrelenting quest to become a sporting giant
With its footprint across cricket, football, and athletics, Reliance Industries’ influence in Indian sports is unrivalled. But what does this mean for the future of these sports?
In recent years, though, the conglomerate is finding a challenger in billionaire Sajjan Jindal’s JSW Sports. The firm, which co-owns IPL team Delhi Capitals, has made its own bets in various other sports. At the 2023 Asian Games, for instance, JSW-backed athletes won 17 medals, whereas Reliance-backed athletes won 12.
You can read more about JSW’s ambitions and the challenges it could face in this December 2023 story.
The billionaire challenging Mukesh Ambani for supremacy in Indian sports
Sajjan Jindal-owned JSW Sports’ varied bets—from cricket to athletics to kabaddi—are paying off, for now
All this activity and attention, though, do nothing to change the fact that IPL and cricket are the most popular sporting events in India. By a long mile.
Several sports and their governing boards have tried to replicate IPL’s success through their own leagues, but most have failed.
The only exception, really, is Kabaddi.
In IPL’s shadow, why kabaddi league shines and other sports fade
IPL sets the agenda for international games. Kabaddi finds its own audience. But hockey and volleyball leagues struggle with broadcasts, sponsors, and administration
You can find this week’s collection in full below. Please write to [email protected] if you have thoughts or feedback to share, or leave a comment on our website or app.
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Rahul leads the promotion and distribution efforts for the journalism produced by The Ken. He works at the intersection of the publication's editorial and business operations.
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