Shane Warne
Shane Warne (Image Credit: Twitter)

Former Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne stated that the amount of money spent by businesses to become owners of the two new IPL teams shows why cricket is the second most popular sport on the planet after football.

On October 25, closed bidding was held by the BCCI for the new IPL 2022 teams. While Irelia Company Private Ltd. (CVC Capital Partners) won the Ahmedabad franchise with a bid of INR 5625 crores, the RPSG Ventures Ltd. won the Lucknow franchise with a winning bid of INR 7090 crores.

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IPL trophy (Image Credit: Twitter)

There were more than 20 different businesses that bought the Invitation to Tender (ITT) document. As many as nine parties showed up for the auction held in Dubai last evening.

Here’s Shane Warne’s tweet regarding the new teams:

Wow! Congratulations to both of the new franchise owners. Staggering amounts of money for each team & shows why cricket has become the 2nd most popular & biggest sport on the planet. $932 & $692 million dollars (USA). Well done to @SGanguly99 & everyone at the @BCCI on the @IPL,” he wrote.

With the addition of the two teams, IPL will now see an expansion in the number of matches. Previously, 60 matches were played – 56 league games and four knockouts. Now, the league will have 74 matches and each team will play seven home and seven away. The format is expected to be similar to that of the IPL 2011 season, where there were ten teams as well.

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MS Dhoni, IPL T20
MS Dhoni’s CSK is the defending champions. (Photo: IPL)

There will also be a mega auction ahead of IPL 2022 season and the franchises that already exist have been allotted four retentions – either a maximum of three Indians or two foreigners. It will be interesting to see what the franchises opt to do.

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