The onngoing auctions, currently underway in Dubai, has triggered a bidding war between the interested parties and as per reports, the valuation of one of the two teams has already crossed Rs 8,000 crore mark.
Notably, the base price of each team was kept at Rs 2,000 crore by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
As per reports received from the auctions, the two favourites for acquiring the two new IPL teams are the Adani and the Manchester United’s Glazer family.
While Adani is most likley to get the Ahmedabad franchise, the Glazer family is all set to grab Lucknow.
There was a tought fight between the Adani Group, the Glazer family and the RP Sanjeev Goenka Group, who is one of the owners of Indian Super League (ISL) side ATK-Mohun Bagan.
After the auctions got underway with the bids being submitted and the verification process done by the BCCI, All Cargo Logistics, Adani Group, RP Sanjiv Goenka, Uday Kotak were the four parties whose bids were approved after technical evaluation along with couple of other companies.
As of now, the financial bids have not yet been opened and its results are expected after few hours.
Last week, the Glazer family, which owns many sports properties including the famous football club Manchester United and also owns the famous American football club Tampa Bay Buccaneers which features in the National Football League (NFL), had shown interest in owning an IPL franchise as it has picked up the bid documents for the new teams.
The Glazer family had picked up the Invitation to Tender (ITT) document from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for the purchase of one of the two new franchises.
Significantly, the deadline for the sale of ITT, the INR 10 lakh document, was on October 10 however, with the Glazer family keen to join the IPL bandwagon, the BCCI had later extended the date for the sale of the new franchise till October 20.
Earlier, the board had 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.
After this auction, the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) will be expanded to a 10-team event from its next edition.
Meanwhile, the number of matches in the lucrative league will also rise to 74 next year from the present 60 matches.