Reportage
Inside the $1.78 billion deal no one saw coming
How the Aditya Birla Group, David Blitzer’s Bolt Ventures, the Times of India Group, and Blackstone’s BXPE Fund swooped in to clinch Royal Challengers Bengaluru
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Analysis
The $3.41 billion week that redrew the IPL
Two exits worth $3.41 billion have reset what an IPL franchise is worth, ushered in a new class of owners, and raised fresh questions about media rights and risk
Analysis
After the windfall
The bankers pitched 60-90% growth in the IPL’s next media rights cycle. The buyers modelled 20%. The gap between those numbers will shape what RCB and Rajasthan Royals are worth
Reportage
The Swede in the Room
EQT has spent nearly two decades buying IT companies and fertility clinics in India. Now it wants a cricket team. Royal Challengers Bengaluru, by most accounts, is where its money is going on March 16.
Reportage
RCB and RR sales: Everyone Is Talking To Everyone
Binding bids are due March 16. Due diligence has uncovered ownership, tax and operating complications absent from the sellers’ headline pitches.
Reportage
Google’s longest game
Google has spent fifteen years embedding itself into cricket's ecosystem: as a platform, a sponsor, a rights-market observer, and now a kingmaker. The sport's two biggest auctions arrive in 2027. The groundwork is already laid.
Reportage
The Rajasthan Royals sale: Why sellers are watching RCB closely
The RCB and RR sales are now entangled, with overlapping bidders, shifting timelines, as the Royals consider waiting for Diageo to set RCB’s price.
Reportage
The visibility dividend: How associate cricket changed the economics of the game
For decades, cricket's margins existed in silence. Then visibility became a commodity that could be manufactured, and everything changed.
Reportage
Royal Challengers Bengaluru attracts $1.8 billion bid as nine parties compete
The State of Play can reveal the complete list of bidders for both franchises as RCB narrows the field and Rajasthan Royals move towards binding bids
Reportage
India-Pakistan: Cricket’s costliest fixture goes missing
Pakistan’s proposed forfeit threatens JioStar’s $900 million tournament and the ICC revenues that fund the global game. Cricket built its economics around a fixture no contract could guarantee.
Reportage
Inside the race to buy RCB and Rajasthan Royals
The race for the two IPL franchises is now down to a handful of serious bidders. Months of exploratory conversations have given way to firmer offers, as buyers begin to confront the numbers and the realities of ownership
Reportage
Inside Unrack’s bet on building elite sports equipment in India
Olympic-grade barbells, coach-led adoption and a market accustomed to buying cheap. Bengaluru-based Unrack is trying to change how Indian sport buys equipment