About Indian Premier League
Indian Premier League (IPL) is one of the top T20 professional cricket tournaments of the world. It is held in India and managed by BCCI (Board Of Control For Cricket In India). This tournament is held in India, but the latest IPL session was held in UAE (United Arab Emirates), due to COVID-19 pandemic. You can guess the popularity of this tournament from its position in ICC Future Tours Programme. It has a window in ICC’s future tours programme. Which means that all the IPL matches are planned and held according to a system so that no other international tournaments can be held during the same period. It is a big source of income for BCCI along with the international cricket players. Not only for the BCCI and cricketers but also it pays a huge contribution to the GDP of India. In 2014, it was the world’s most-attended cricket tournament in 2014. In 2010 it became the first cricket tournament of the world to be broadcasted online on video platforms such as Youtube. Till now thirteen sessions are successfully organized for IPL.
Foundation, Format & Teams
Indian Premier League was created in 2007 by BCCI. It was the first merchandise of the Twenty20 cricket tournament announced by BCCI. At that time the vice president of BCCI was Lalit Modi. And it is said that Lalit Modi was the main planner of the tournament. The format of this tournament is T20 and it is played in a Double Round-robin and playoffs method. Eight teams are the participants of this tournament. All these eight teams represent eight metropolitan cities and states. The format of this tournament is similar to the NBA (National Basketball Association) tournament and premier league of England. Also, its format was similar to the ICL (Indian Cricket League), which was also a tournament held in India. But BCCI has never sanctioned ICL and banned it.
Sponsors
The first sponsor of this tournament was DLF. DLF is one of the biggest real estate developers in the country. DLF bought sponsorship for the first five sessions of this tournament for $28 million (200 crore rupees). In 2012, Pepsico bought the title sponsorship of IPL for next five years after paying $56 million (397 crore rupees). But after only three years of the contract, the deal was terminated by the company itself. After that in 2015, BCCI sold the title sponsorship to the Chinese smartphone manufacturer company Vivo in $28 million for the next two years. After this two-year sponsorship contract, Vivo won the title sponsorship for the next five years after paying $310 million (2199 crore rupees). But in 2020 Vivo lost this contract after Indo-China international tensions. In 2020 Dream11 won the title sponsorship for $31.1 million (222 crore rupees).
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Prize Pool & Revenue
According to the reports generated after the 2019 session of IPL, the prize pool was around $7 million (500 million rupees) in the 2019 season. In this prize pool, the winning team got $2.8 million. While the first two runner ups won $1.8 million and $1.2 million respectively. Also, the team which held the fourth position in the tournament gets the prize amount similar to the second runner up, which is around $1.2 million. For players, there are many other awards such as orange cap, purple cap, a man of the series, man of the match, etc. Other than this the half of the total prize money is also given to the players performing well in the tournament.
Top Teams & Players
The most successful team of the IPL is Mumbai Indians because it has won the champions title around 5 times in all the 13 seasons. If we talk about the best batsman of this tournament then the title goes to Virat Kohli, who scored around 5878 runs in all seasons. The best bowler is Lasith Malinga with 170 wickets only in IPL.
Venues & Broadcasting
All the 12 seasons of Indian Premier League were held in India. But in 2020, due to COVID-19 epidemic, the tournament was moved to UAE and held there in various cricket stadiums. The broadcasting rights of IPL are held by two groups in a partnership. The Sony Pictures Networks and World Sport Group are the partners in broadcasting rights worth $1.03 billion.
Winners
The first season of Indian Premier League was won by Rajasthan Royals. Runner up was Chennai SuperKings in the inaugural tournament. The inaugural tournament was held in 2008. The recent thirteenth tournament (2020) held in UAE was won by Mumbai Indians.
Controversies
As usually other highly rated sports tournaments face, IPL has also faced controversies related to match-fixing. Some of the IPL players were arrested by Delhi police in 2013. Those players were alleged for spot-fixing in the tournament. Also, many popular faces have been alleged for being involved in betting during IPL tournaments.
