Fans' comfort should be top most in franchises' mind: Shukla

IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla today said that all the eight franchises have been asked to make efforts towards making the League more spectator-friendly and promised that the ninth edition would be "bigger and better".
An IPL workshop was held for the franchises at a Mumbai suburban hotel today and Shukla expressed his satisfaction after day's proceedings.
"It was a very fruitful day with franchise representatives taking an active part in the exchanges. The main focus on how we can make experience of fans better, their comfort. The IPL fan-based parks were a huge hit last year. So from 16 fan parks across the countries, we are planning to increase it to 32. The IPL-9 will be bigger and better," IPL chairman Shukla told PTI today.

However Shukla said that there was no discussions with the franchises on Lodha panel recommendations on IPL.
"No there has been no discussions on that. First, BCCI members need to meet and discuss the recommendations by the panel. Our president Shashank Manohar is looking into the matter."
Shukla said that according to a KPMG study, the IPL contributed heavily to the UAE as well as Indian GDP in the last two editions. A presentation was made in this regard.