IPL teams on a sticky wicket

Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises are feeling the heat this year, with top teams reporting a slowdown in revenues and profits despite the league’s overall financial strength, Javed Farooqui reports for The Economic Times. Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) all posted lower revenues in FY25, compared to FY24. Mumbai Indians saw revenues dip to ₹697 crore from ₹737 crore last year, with a profit of ₹84 crore. Meanwhile, RCB’s revenue fell more steeply, from ₹649 crore to ₹514 crore, with a profit of ₹140 crore. LSG posted a ₹72 crore-loss on ₹557 crore in revenue, the report says. "LSG has developed a strong fan base and enjoys healthy ticket revenues. It has also garnered attractive sponsorships. These, coupled with revenues from broadcast rights, augur well for the business," RPSG Ventures Chairman Sanjiv Goenka said. The slowdown comes even as the Board of Control for Cricket in India made ₹11,703 crore from IPL 2024, driven by ₹8,744 crore in media rights, ₹2,163 crore in franchise fees, and ₹758 crore in sponsorship, according to its FY24 annual report. The board also shared ₹4,578 crore with teams, the report says further. A large part of the FY25 revenues comes from IPL 2024 matches, along with early earnings from IPL 2025, as the tournament usually runs from late March to May cutting across two financial years, the report adds. With the league booming but team finances tightening, should IPL franchises rethink their business strategies? Share your thoughts in the comments section. Source: https://lnkd.in/dHUPD6Dd ✍ Dhritiman Deb 📸 Getty Images #IPL #IndianPremierLeague #RCB #MumbaiIndians #LSG

England invented cricket and India turned it into a ₹9,700 crore business. BCCI is a ₹9,700 crore business with India holding the remote. 📊 The Numbers That Speak Louder Than Trophies 📍For financial year ending March 2024, BCCI reported ₹9,741.7 crore in total income Vs ₹6,558.8 crore last year 📍Out of this ₹5,761 crore came from the IPL alone (which is 59% of total revenue). 📍Interest from BCCI’s ₹30,000 crore reserve fund added another ₹987 crore a classic case of money making more money. 📍Surplus/Profit: ₹3,611 crs 🌍 The World Pays Attention. In the ICC’s new revenue-sharing model (2024–27 cycle), the BCCI will receive 38.5% of annual ICC revenues, approx $230 million per year — which is 40% of the ICC’s profits. This is huge vs the share of the next highest boards: England Cricket Board (6.9%) and Cricket Australia (6.25%). As Ravi Shastri said “Most money generated comes from India” TIMELINE of DOMINANCE 📍 1983 India won the World Cup and with that cricket moved from elite to household. Viewership exploded and began to be followed closely in every household --- 📍 1991 With economic liberalisation brands entered and broadcast deals began as the brands could capture immense visibility. BCCI started seeing real money with broadcast rights 📍1996 TV Boom The Wills World Cup made cricket a TV spectacle with private channels also joining in --- 📍Early 2000s . The Ganguly Era With players like Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar, and Sehwag, cricket became a passion Sponsorship income rise 3x in just a few years. --- 📍 2008 IPL is launched and First-year value was ₹4,000 crore In its very first year, the IPL attracted $1 billion+ in revenue. Today, it's a $10.7 billion brand --- 📍 2016 Star India buys global IPL media rights for ₹16,348 crore for 5 years. Per match value: ₹55 crore. Cricket viewership was at 335 million --- 📍 2022 New IPL broadcast rights sold for ₹48,390 crore (2023–2027). That’s ₹118 crore per match — higher than Premier League or NBA. --- 📍 2024 IPL viewership alone crossed 45.9 crs 2025 IPL final drew 169 million TV viewers, making it the most-watched cricket match ever on linear TV . --- 💼 From a cricket board to a financial machine BCCI now runs: ✅IPL and WPL ✅India’s national and domestic tournaments ✅Media rights worth billions ✅Infrastructure grants across states 📍Today Indian markets account for over 80% of global ICC revenue — broadcasters pay huge for India-centric events. 📍The BCCI is influential and smaller boards now depend on Indian touring series, IPL-linked leagues, and BCCI support. 📍BCCI’s extras funds include state association grants and infrastructure investments. In FY25 alone ₹499 crore in grants, ₹500 crore for infrastructure in India. Still it is tax exempted as it is registered as a charitable trust under Sec 12A. What is your opinion? Image Credit. Respective Owner PC : CA Piyali

We made 10 lakhs in profit… because we rejected an IPL offer worth 8 lakhs. Sounds confusing, right? We thought so too. Here’s what happened. A well-known CSR brand approached us with an exciting proposal - supply 1,000 biryani boxes for every match. The crowd would be huge. The exposure will be massive. When you put the numbers together, it came to ₹8,00,000 in potential revenue. Tempting, isn’t it? But when i dug deeper, we spotted the twist - the margins were just 2%. Now, in simple terms, margin is what’s left in your pocket after covering all costs. If you sell something for ₹100 and your margin is 2%, you only keep ₹2 after paying for ingredients, packaging, labour, transport and everything. And in business, low margins mean high risk. One small misstep and you could end up losing money instead of making it. So, just to test my team, I asked them what they thought we should do. Honestly, I expected them to say, “Let’s take it. It’s IPL!” But they said, “Sir, Let’s skip this and focus on our regular customers.” So we said no. And the very next day, one of our visitors, impressed by our packaging and taste, placed an order for 7,000 biryani boxes. Within three days, we made a profit of around 10 lakhs. Some offers look golden on the surface, but not all of them grow your business. The skill is in spotting which ones to take and which ones to walk away from. And the better you get at that, the sharper your decision-making becomes.