Delhi Capitals
With no IPL title to show, franchise believes the shake-up will turn things around
Rishabh Pant and Prithvi Shaw, besides retaining Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting as skipper and coach respectively. They believe acquiring Shikhar Dhawan from Sunrisers Hyderabad in a swap deal will infuse extra experience in top-order batting.
In an informal chat, Jindal said JSW Group, when it entered sports in 2012, was clear it should stay out of cricket. “There was no requirement for additional capital in IPL,” the Mumbai-based industrialist said. But having built a successful I-league/isl team in Bengaluru FC as well as a Pro Kabaddi League franchise, JSW jumped at the chance to own a slice of IPL.
”My vision as a sporting entrepreneur is to build a sporting company. And without cricket you can’t do that in India,” Jindal said.
“ISL is a loss-making entity at the moment,” he said. Jindal felt the franchise league has grown but the modest ranking of the national team as well as clashing TV timings of ISL matches with European club football has had an impact. JSW’S focus will be commercial and sporting.
“When you look at IPL, its new commercial deal, teams are making incredible amounts of money. So, it’s a very profitable venture, a great business to be in. When you look at TV or cable TV, only two things are relevant – live sports and live news. Rest are moving to Netflix, Geo TV, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, etc. The property rights of IPL, especially its digital rights in the next five years, are going to skyrocket.”
JSW Sport will have a continuous association with its IPL players. It will monitor fitness, nutrition and injuries round the year and also sort out logistics, creating an atmosphere where players can perform, he added.
When you look at IPL, its new commercial deal, teams are making incredible amounts of money. It is very profitable. PARTH JINDAL, JSW sports head We always ahve to put out the right team and focus on keeping the core. We have to learn from the successful teams.
KIRAN KUMAR, Co-owner from GMR