Thanks to IPL, American money discovers Indian cricket at last

In the decade since founding RedBird Capital Partners, Gerry Cardinale has acquired stakes in Fenway Sports Group, the New York Yankees' YES Network and AC Milan. One of his partners, Alec Scheiner, previously worked at NFL's Dallas Cowboys. Both men are quite familiar with what a billion-dollar business looks like. The sport where they see the biggest upside these days, though, might be a surprise. "When we first started looking at cricket, we were by no means experts," Scheiner said. "But the more we studied it, the more we realised it felt like NFL did 20 years ago."

That was why, in June 2021, RedBird bought a 15% stake in IPL team Rajasthan Royals for $37.5 million. The money that has poured into the league over the past 15 months suggests that RedBird got a bargain. Four months after that deal closed, an IPL expansion team sold for $940 million. Eight months later, IPL negotiated new broadcasting pacts worth $6.2 billion.

At over $1 billion a year, IPL now generates annual broadcast revenues on par with top leagues such as the NFL ($10 billion a year), England's Premier League (about $6.9 billion) and the NBA ($2.7 billion). On a per-match basis, IPL ranks just behind NFL.


And suddenly a lot of people want in. Disney and Sony were among the bidders in the broadcast rights tender last year. CVC Capital Partners just added an IPL team to a portfolio that already owns interests in rugby and soccer. Among those it beat out? The American owners of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United.

That there is money to be made in cricket in India is a new phenomenon. As recently as the 1990s, the BCCI had to pay Doordarshan to show the national team's matches. The start of the IPL in 2008 changed all that. IPL matches now draw domestic TV audiences of more than 200 million. "It ticked many boxes from an investment perspective," said Mustafa Ghouse, a director of one of the league's founding teams, Delhi Capitals. "It is a closed league with no relegation, so your revenue is secure irrespective of your performance, while costs are limited by a player salary cap." NYT