Reportage
Passported out
India spent 18 years turning away footballers who wanted to play for it. A proposal now with the Prime Minister’s Office would reopen the door, if New Delhi and FIFA can agree on what nationality means.
Reportage
Reportage
The new turf war: How District Play is taking over India's courts
As urban Indians swap café catch-ups for floodlit courts, a small market for paid play is starting to matter. Eternal’s District is trying to own the booking sheet before anyone else can.
Reportage
What Genius Sports really wants from Indian football
Why Genius Sports, a NYSE-listed B2B sports data and technology firm, has bid Rs 2,129 crore for the Indian Super League—a competition it cannot legally monetise in India. The mystery is what exactly it’s buying.
Reportage
Cricket’s banker: How A&W came to price the IPL
A&W Capital is registered in London, operates from Mumbai and is expanding to New York. Since 2021, it has advised on nearly every major cricket transaction. You have probably not heard of it. That, very much, is the point.
Reportage
From S Tendehar to the ICC: Cricket’s 43-year hunt for a game of its own
For nearly four decades, cricket has chased a digital mirror worthy of its devotion. Time and again, it has come close, only to misplace the moment. Now, the ICC believes it has finally assembled the pieces. Turning those pieces into one complete game will be harder.
Reportage
The Rajasthan Royals sale: five weeks, and a new offer
Last month, word circulated that a consortium led by Kal Somani had secured the Rajasthan Royals for $1.63 billion. No party to the transaction has confirmed it. The lead bidder is still assembling capital, even as a rival consortium submitted a binding offer.
Reportage
The money behind the money: How the $1.78 billion RCB deal is being financed
Three weeks after Diageo agreed to sell Royal Challengers Bengaluru for $1.78 billion, the consortium buying it is still raising the funds part of the money. The State of Play reveals how, and who is being asked to write the cheques.
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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
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.