Owners' pride: IPL's soaring valuations reflect a thriving business model

RCB's title win underscores the IPL's growing financial power, with franchise valuations soaring as the league emerges as one of the world's most profitable sports properties

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) has defended its title in the Indian Premier League (IPL), but it is by no means the most valuable team in this 18-year-old tournament. It is behind Kolkata Knight Riders (three-time champions), Mumbai Indians, and Chennai Super Kings (both five-time winners), Sunrisers Hyderabad (once) and Delhi Capitals (never). If that reflects the quixotic nature of sports finance, consider that the team, originally bought by the UB group in 2008 for ₹480 crore, changed hands to an Aditya Birla group-led consortium for a ₹16,600 crore valuation. That is more than 40 times RCB’s annual operating profit and over 20 times its revenue. Yet it comes as no surprise, as the IPL’s ecosystem valuation has surged from $1.1 billion in 2008 to over $18.5 billion in 2026. More to the point, owning an IPL team has become good business.

 

According to the latest Fanatic Sports and Hurun India’s “Most Valuable Sports Teams”, the average IPL franchise valuation is projected to reach $15 billion by 2032, from $1.8 billion this year. That is still some distance from America’s National Football League (NFL), the world’s most valuable sport league, where average franchise valuations were $7 billion this year and are expected to touch $29.8 billion in 2032. Nor, if considered in the sobering terms of annual revenues, does the IPL match the NFL or even the globally popular English Premier League (EPL), on which the IPL is loosely modelled. The NFL’s annual revenue is $23 billion; for the EPL, the figure is $8 billion to the IPL’s $1.2 billion. But when it comes to per-match valuation, the IPL gets second place — at $13.4 million, against the NFL’s 30 million and the EPL’s $11 million. This is principally because of tournament structures. An NFL season hosts 272 games over 18 weeks. The EPL hosts 380 games over nine months. In contrast, the IPL hosts 74 matches over 10 weeks or so.

 

Unlike the EPL, in which only three or four teams make money and most depend on owners for injections of cash, eight of the 10 teams in the IPL make a profit. This happy state results from a critical difference in the nature of the tournaments. In the EPL, whose global viewership is three times the IPL’s, player wages and bonuses can range between 90 and 100 per cent of revenues. This is because the tournament fiercely competes internally and with the Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese leagues for player talent. The IPL, like the NFL, where all 32 teams are profitable, has no competitors and player auction precludes inter-team poaching.  The IPL, like the NFL, is a monopsonistic tournament. Neither tournament has the relegation and promotion battles of the European football leagues. That means the NFL and IPL can afford to impose hard salary caps on teams. Teams in the 2026 IPL edition, for instance, had to work under a ₹151 crore salary cap, including the auction purse, match fees, and performance pay. This profitability works hugely in favour of franchise owners to invest in other national T20 leagues. Most own franchises in South Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In European football, this is a bounty only oil-rich West Asian sovereign wealth funds such as those of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE can afford. In Europe, this trend has prompted reservations about player independence and fair competition. In the cricket T20 world, no one’s complaining — yet.