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.
Somewhere in Mumbai, a banker is running a discounted cash flow model for the fourth time this week, tweaking assumptions on the next Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights cycle. In London and New York, lawyers are parsing ownership structures layered over a decade of secondary transactions. In boardrooms across India, consortium conversations are happening over calls that began with “strictly between us.” Advisors are fielding calls they weren’t expecting. Consortiums are being assembled, dismantled, and reassembled.
Everyone is still talking to everyone.
Multiple sources familiar with the process told The State of Play that The Aditya Birla Group is in serious contention for Rajasthan Royals, a development this publication first reported in January.
Alongside them, as Reuters reported last week, is American sports investor David Blitzer, co-founder of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment and part-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers (NBA) and the New Jersey Devils (NHL), a figure whose sports investment track record stretches across five major North American leagues.
His family office, BOLT Ventures, has been in discussions with multiple parties, including The Times of India Group, Capri Global, and the Birlas.
Moneycontrol first reported the Birla-Blitzer partnership today. The State of Play has learned that conversations between the two parties have moved beyond the exploratory stage, with one source describing them as “extremely serious.” An Aditya Birla Group spokesperson was unavailable for comment. BOLT Ventures could not be reached for comment.
On the RCB side, Avram Glazer’s Lancer Capital, which tabled a $1.8 billion non-binding bid for Royal Challengers Bengaluru—the highest on the table, as The State of Play first reported on February 6—remains the frontrunner.
