BCCI plans women’s IPL next year

Monitoring Desk

NEW DELHI: India’s cricket board is planning to launch the women’s edition of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament next year.

“It has to be approved by the (annual general meeting),” Sourav Ganguly, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) told reporters on Friday. “We plan to start it by next year hopefully.”

IPL chairman Brijesh Patel said the process to launch the women’s version has “started” and that it could be a five- or six-team league.

Key decisions, including a move to float the media rights tender for the next five years, were taken in the IPL governing council meeting on Friday in Mumbai.

Bids are expected to be invited separately for digital, TV and rest of the world rights in a breakaway from the previous term, when Star India paid $2.55 billion for five years of TV and digital rights up to 2022.

This time the collective base price from various categories has been kept at around $4 billion, a senior official told BCCI on condition of anonymity.

The money-spinning league is a huge revenue earner for the BCCI.

Pre-pandemic, the IPL was estimated to generate more than $11 billion for the Indian economy each year.

The 15th edition of the men’s IPL begins Saturday, with holders Chennai Super Kings taking on Kolkata Knight Riders in an expanded 10-team extravaganza in Mumbai and Pune.