The Indian Premier League, created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and sanctioned by the International Cricket Council (ICC), is a Twenty20 cricket competition. It is the brainchild of BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi and is modelled along the lines of club football in Europe, which is unlike anything cricket has known in the past. The best players from around the world will not play according to their nationality but as per the market forces.

Big money involved

The sheer big money of the IPL is unprecedented at this level of cricket. The BCCI has already made close to US$ 1.75 billion solely from the sale of TV rights ($908 million), promotion ($108 million) and franchises (approximately $700 million). Players are expected to earn close to US$1 million for a three-year contract. It's an entire cricket economy out there.

Top cricketers involved

There are 77 names in the competition. MS Dhoni, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Shoaib Akhtar, Jayawardene, Jayasuriya, Yuvraj and Hayden are some of the big names.

The process

The tournament is scheduled to begin on April 18, 2008 and will last for 44 days, involving 59 matches. The prize money for the league will be around Rs 13 crore (US $3million).

Each team will have a pool of 16 players, of whom eight can be international and four from the Under-22 level or from the catchment area where the team is based.

The governing council consists of Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi, Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi and Ravi Shastri, Rajiv Shukla, Chirayu Amin, Inderjit Singh Bindra and Arun Jaitley.

Although it is going to be a franchise system, some foreign players have already been contracted by the BCCI to play in the IPL.

Fixtures

Each team will play the other 7 teams home and away, the top four teams at the end of the group stages will go through to the semi finals.

Format

8 teams
16 players in a squad

Difference between IPL and ICL

Unlike the Indian Cricket League (ICL), the IPL is an official sanctioned Twenty20 tournament. Owing to its recognition by the International Cricket Council (ICC), it will enjoy a better status and international reach. Also each team has individual owners.

Television Rights

On January 14, 2008, it was announced that a consortium consisting of India's Sony Television network and Singapore-based World Sports Group secured the rights of the Indian Premier League. The record deal is for 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 telecast rights and US$108 million for the promotion of the tournament.

The BCCI announced that the bulk of the profit from this deal would initially go to the IPL franchises themselves, gradually reducing this amount over the duration of the contract.

Network Ten has purchased the rights to show every game live in Australia on free-to-air television for the next five years at a cost of AU$10 - $15 million.

Title Sponsorship Rights

Indian real estate developer DLF Universal secured exclusive rights to the Indian Premier League title sponsorship worth INR 200 crore (over US$50 million) for five years.

Franchises

The magnitude of the Indian Premier League was confirmed when the winning bidders for the eight franchises were announced on January 24, 2008. While the total base price for auction was US$400 million, the auction fetched US$723.59 million. The official list of franchise owners announced and the winning bids were as follows.

Franchise owner and price paid

Bangalore - Vijay Mallya/UB group - USD 111.6 million

Chennai Super Kings - India Cements - USD 91 million

Delhi DareDevils - GMR group - USD 84 million

Hyderabad - Deccan Chronicle - USD 107 million

Jaipur - Emerging Media (Manoj Badale, Lachlan Murdoch, Suresh Chellaram and investors) - USD 67 million

Kolkata - Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment in partnership with Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta - USD 75.09 million

Mohali - Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia (Bombay Dyeing), Karan Paul (Apeejay Surendera Group) and Dabur's Mohit Burman - USD 76 million

Mumbai - Mumbai Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited - USD 111.9 million.