India plans women’s IPL next year

NEW DELHI AFP March 26, 2022: India’s cricket board is planning to launch the women’s edition of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament next year.

“It has to be approved at the (annual general meeting),” Sourav Ganguly, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) told reporters on Friday. “We plan to start it by next year hopefully.” IPL chairman Brijesh Patel said the process to launch the women’s version has “started” and that it could be a five or six-team league.

The BCCI has organised a women’s T20 challenge event since 2018, and Patel said this year there will be four matches involving three teams around the men’s playoffs. The 15th edition of the men’s IPL begins Saturday, with holders Chennai Super Kings taking on Kolkata Knight Riders in Mumbai.

Key decisions, including a move to float the media rights tender for the next five years for the men’s edition, were taken in the IPL governing council meeting on Friday in Mumbai. Bids are expected to be invited separately for digital, TV and rest of the world rights in a breakaway from the previous term, when Star India paid $2.55 billion for five years of TV and digital rights up to 2022.

This time the collective base price from various categories has been kept at around $4 billion, a senior official told BCCI on condition of anonymity. The money- spinning league -- which expanded to 10 teams to include Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans and 74 matches this year -- is a huge revenue earner for the BCCI. Pre-pandemic, the IPL was estimated to have generated more than $11 billion for the Indian economy each year.