Reportage
For nearly four decades, cricket has chased a digital mirror worthy of its devotion. Time and again, it has come close, only to misplace the moment. Now, the ICC believes it has finally assembled the pieces. What waits beyond that belief is the hard part.
Reportage
Last month, word circulated that a consortium led by Kal Somani had secured the Rajasthan Royals for $1.63 billion. No party to the transaction has confirmed it. The lead bidder is still assembling capital, even as a rival consortium submitted a binding offer.
Reportage
Three weeks after Diageo sold Royal Challengers Bengaluru for $1.78 billion, the consortium that bought it is still raising the funds. The State of Play reveals how, and who is being asked to write the cheques.
Reportage
How the Aditya Birla Group, David Blitzer’s Bolt Ventures, the Times of India Group, and Blackstone’s BXPE Fund swooped in to clinch Royal Challengers Bengaluru
Reportage
EQT has spent nearly two decades buying IT companies and fertility clinics in India. Now it wants a cricket team. Royal Challengers Bengaluru, by most accounts, is where its money is going on March 16.
Reportage
Binding bids are due March 16. Due diligence has uncovered ownership, tax and operating complications absent from the sellers’ headline pitches.
Reportage
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.
Reportage
The RCB and RR sales are now entangled, with overlapping bidders, shifting timelines, as the Royals consider waiting for Diageo to set RCB’s price.
Reportage
For decades, cricket's margins existed in silence. Then visibility became a commodity that could be manufactured, and everything changed.
Reportage
The State of Play can reveal the complete list of bidders for both franchises as RCB narrows the field and Rajasthan Royals move towards binding bids
Reportage
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.
Reportage
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