Reportage
RCB and RR sales: Everyone Is Talking To Everyone
Binding bids are due March 16. What serious bidders have found when they looked closely is considerably more complicated than either seller’s information memoranda suggested.
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.
Exclusives
The Rajasthan Royals sale: Why sellers are watching RCB closely
The RCB and RR sales are now entangled, with overlapping bidders, shifting timelines, and each side watching to see what price the other commands. Meanwhile, the shortlists narrow and complications mount.
Reportage
The visibility dividend: How associate cricket rewrote the economics of the game
For decades, cricket's margins existed in silence. Then visibility became a commodity that could be manufactured, and everything changed.
Reportage
Royal Challengers Bengaluru attracts $1.8 billion bid as nine parties compete
The State of Play can reveal the complete list of bidders for both franchises as RCB narrows the field and Rajasthan Royals moves towards binding bids
Reportage
India-Pakistan: Cricket’s costliest fixture goes missing
Pakistan’s proposed forfeit undermines JioStar’s $900 million tournament and the ICC funding system that sustains the game. Cricket has monetised the rivalry for years. The ledger finally became too heavy.
Exclusives
Inside the process: how the race for RCB and Rajasthan Royals is unfolding
The race for the two IPL franchises is now down to a handful of serious bidders. Months of exploratory conversations have given way to firmer offers, as buyers begin to confront the numbers and the realities of ownership
Reportage
Inside Unrack’s bet on building elite sports equipment in India
India’s elite athletes train with equipment that is meant to be replaced. A Bengaluru-based manufacturer is betting that coaches and not procurement will change that logic
Reportage
Indian football’s impossible restart
How the ISL is attempting to rebuild in 39 days what took a decade to construct
Reportage
Inside Ten x You: How Sachin Tendulkar is rethinking the cricket shoe
What happens when India’s greatest cricketer treats footwear as an engineering problem, not an endorsement
Reportage
Inside cricket’s $3 billion workaround
The broadcaster finds itself trapped in a $3 billion contract it can’t afford and can’t exit. The workaround taking shape will determine whether Indian cricket’s decade of growth was sustainable or inflated.
Exclusives
Exclusive: Rajasthan Royals draw interest in early ownership talks
A deep-pocketed gaming giant seeks a minority stake while a diversified conglomerate eyes majority or full ownership