Sports Original explainer
From a 2008 experiment to a business worth billions: how the IPL rewrote cricket's economics.
In April 2008, a new cricket tournament began in India with eight city teams, cheerleaders, Bollywood owners and a format many traditionalists dismissed as a passing fad. Eighteen years later, the Indian Premier League is the richest cricket league in the world, and on a per-match basis one of the most valuable sports properties on the planet, behind only American football's NFL. How did a two-month domestic tournament become a multi-billion-dollar business? The answer lies in television, timing, and the size of India's cricket audience.
The IPL was created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the BCCI, and launched in 2008. The idea was simple and borrowed from American sport: city-based franchise teams, owned by businesses and film stars, playing short Twenty20 matches in the evening, when television audiences are largest. Players were bought at auction, not assigned by region, so the best cricketers in the world could play for the same team as an unknown teenager from a small town.
The format was built for television. A Twenty20 match lasts about three and a half hours, fits an evening, and produces a result every night. That suited advertisers, broadcasters and fans who had little time for five-day Test matches. The league now has ten teams, and each season runs for about two months, ending in a playoff and a final that draws some of the largest television audiences in Indian sport.
The engine of the IPL's wealth is its media rights. In June 2022, the BCCI auctioned the rights for the 2023 to 2027 cycle for 48,390 crore rupees, about 6.2 billion dollars at the time. Disney Star won the television rights for 23,575 crore rupees, and Viacom18 won the digital streaming rights for 23,758 crore rupees. It was the first time in Indian sport that digital rights were worth more than television rights.
Spread over 410 matches, the deal works out to about 118 crore rupees per match. That makes the IPL the second most valuable sports property in the world on a per-match basis, behind only the NFL. For comparison, the English Premier League earns roughly 11 million dollars per match from broadcast rights, while the IPL earns about 14 to 15 million dollars per match.
The BCCI typically keeps about half of the central revenue and distributes the rest among the franchises, giving each team roughly 450 to 500 crore rupees a year from media rights alone. On top of that, teams earn from title sponsorships, jersey sponsors, ticket sales, merchandise and prize money. The league's brand value was estimated at about 3.9 billion dollars in 2026, and its total business value at about 18.5 billion dollars, according to valuation firm Houlihan Lokey.
Three things came together. First, audience. Cricket is India's biggest shared passion, and the IPL put the world's best players in front of that audience every night for two months. Second, timing. The league grew alongside cheap mobile data and streaming, so a fan in a small town could watch on a phone for free or nearly free, and advertisers followed the eyeballs. Third, scarcity. There are only ten franchises, and owning one means owning a share of the next broadcast deal, which is expected to be bigger still. That is why franchise values have climbed into the billions of dollars: Royal Challengers Bengaluru, for example, changed hands in a deal reported at about 1.78 billion dollars after winning their first title in 2025.
The auction system also made the league a market. Each team works within a salary cap, 120 crore rupees per team for the 2025 season, and bids for players in an open auction. Young Indian players who once earned modest domestic salaries can now earn crores in a single season, and the best overseas players earn more in two months of IPL than in a year of international cricket.
The IPL changed cricket's money map. The BCCI is now by far the richest cricket board in the world, earning several times more than most other boards, and its income crossed 9,700 crore rupees in 2023-24. That money funds domestic cricket in India, from age-group tournaments to women's cricket, and it gives India enormous influence in world cricket's politics.
It also changed the game itself. Twenty20 leagues have sprung up in England, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan and the United States, all copying the IPL's franchise model. Players now plan their careers around leagues, not only national teams. And the IPL's success showed every sport in India that a well-packaged domestic league could become a serious business.
The league is not without criticism: questions about its effect on Test cricket, the concentration of money, and the pressure on young players are debated every season. But as a business story, it is unmatched in world sport. A tournament launched as an experiment in 2008 now sits beside the NFL and the Premier League in the economics of broadcasting, and it did so by understanding one thing better than anyone else: how India watches cricket.
This explainer was written by The Daily Short's desk from the sources listed above. It is general information, not professional advice. Spot an error? Tell us via the Contact page and we will correct it. Follow our official Instagram @the.daily.short.