IPL – The Origin

Before the 21st century kicked in, the gentleman’s game, cricket, had 2 formats — Test and One Day International. As we stepped into the 21st century, cricket demanded a boost to attract crowds back into the stadiums.

Thus, the early 2000s saw the rise of the shortest format — Twenty-20 cricket. The England Cricket Board (ECB) was the brainchild behind it, and the format soon gained traction among the fans.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) took it one step further, revolutionising the way the sport operates. But it all didn’t come off easily. A lot of hard yards were put in to bring the IPL alive.

So, how did IPL take off? And who brought it into reality?

Well, let’s get to know the origin story of the IPL.

The Man Behind the Idea

Lalit Modi — an Indian businessman and the then BCCI vice-president — was the brainchild behind the formation of the IPL in 2008. However, Modi had to slog off for more than 2 decades to start a cricket league in India.

Sounds crazy, right?

Modi’s dream to start a domestic cricket league in the country dates back to the 1990s. He had returned from the USA after completing his graduation. 

During his stay in the US, he came across the American sports leagues and wanted to start something on similar lines around cricket.

So, Modi started learning about the business and broadcast aspects of cricket. Soon, in 1996, he put forward a proposal in front of the BCCI to start a 50-over cricket league in India.

He even named it the Indian Cricket League, with 7-8 city-based teams participating in it. The BCCI gave its approval, however, things fizzled out due to some issues, and the league never took off.

Modi’s plan also took a backseat for a long time until T20 cricket gained attention and a competition cropped up in the market. It was the year 2007.

In between these years, Modi tried to strike cordial relations with the people at BCCI and its affiliated state boards. That helped him rise to the highest position in the Indian cricket board.

By 2007, Modi was the vice president of the BCCI, which gave him some power to bring his dream into reality. However, before the IPL could get off the ground, the league already had competition in the form of another T20 league — the Indian Cricket League (ICL) — the same name Modi had thought of for his ODI league way back in 1996.

The new ICL was run by the Essel Group, owned by Subhash Chandra. However, the BCCI had objections about the league and refused to recognise it as a domestic tournament.

After a few months of ICL’s announcement, Lalit Modi swung into action and started looking at the prospects of launching the IPL. He met with BCCI’s members, broadcasters, other national boards, and players.

Once everyone was on board, he made a formal announcement of the IPL in September 2007. At that time, the first-ever T20 World Cup was underway in South Africa, which India won after beating arch-rivals Pakistan.

That victory shot up the excitement about T20 cricket in India, which was necessary to get the IPL off to a blazing start. Then Modi worked on shaping up a business model for the IPL.

He arrived at the franchise-based model, which was used to a large extent in American sports leagues. After all, he was highly impressed with the structure in the 1990s itself.

As 2008 arrived, the IPL sold franchise rights to 8 entities for a whopping $730 million! They followed it up by hosting the player auction, which saw franchises splurge millions of dollars to acquire the best talent.

Now, everything was set, and the ball finally rolled on April 18, 2008, when Royal Challengers Bangalore took on Kolkata Knight Riders at a packed Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

With that, a dream had become a reality, and the moment got etched in golden words in history!