No cricket player looks forward to a string of zeros. However, the players of the DFL Indian Premier League Twenty20 had huge grins on their faces as the zeroes were strung on like pearls in an endless necklace.

Cricket is on a winning streak, with the Indian Premier League raining big bucks, fame and glamour. IPL has elevated the game to a new high and the rules of the game have been rewritten forever.

Cricket has always attracted big amounts of money in India. But post-IPL, it is set to enter levels never thought possible.

The player’s auction was a huge sale with no discounts. There were eight franchises from Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mohali and Delhi. These franchise owners, most of whom are billionaires, spent over $718 million between them to get the team rights. Each team was allowed to register a maximum of eight foreign players, only four of them will be able to play in the XI.

Big money was spent by the franchises and the highest spending franchise is Team Mumbai, with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. shelling out $111.09 million.

Bangalore was bought by Vijay Malya’s United Breweries for 111.6million. Deccan Chronicle payed $107million for Team Hyderabad. Team Chennai comes a close second with Srinivasan of India Cements paying $91million. Team Delhi was bought by GMR for $84million. Team Mohali went to Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia for $76million. Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, franchise owners of Team Kolkata spent $75.09million. Team Jaipur bought buy Emerging Media was the cheapest at $67 million. (more…)

A ten year deal worth a whooping $50 Billion for developing IPLT20.com as an online presence of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been clinched by Live Current Media (LCM,) a Vancouver, Canada based media company.

Live Current Media entered into an agreement with IPL and BCCI, which is the largest cricket body in the world, to provide exclusive online content for IPL through its website, IPLT20.com. The rights include building, launching and operating the online portal IPLT20.com. This deal includes a guaranteed $3 million per year to the BCCI and $2 million to the IPL, which amounts to $50 million over a ten year period. This is to be a combination of revenue generated through advertising percentages, sponsorships and merchandising sales.

Reports say that IPLT20.com will feature all the news about IPL, including profiles of players, interviews, audio-visual, photographs, live scoreboards, summaries match results, schedules, statistics and ticketing. They wish to make this an interactive site, where fans will be able to take part in polls and contests as well as sign up for newsletters for up-to-date information. Live Current Media also plans on developing fun applications such as Fantasy Cricket on their IPLT20.com site, which will endear it more to their numerous fans around the globe, which Live Current Media estimates at about one billion.

Since Live Current Media also owns cricket.com, in addition to IPLT20.com, it is also planning on developing it as another destination as well as BCCI.tv, BCCI’s official website. The BCCI site will be a premier sports website and will be the ultimate destination for all cricket fans to get all the information they need about teams and players. (more…)