\n<\/p>\n
Investors from the United States are taking a big step into Indian cricket, with two separate billion-dollar deals being struck in the same day for teams from the country’s most popular sports league.<\/p>\n
No team in the Indian Premier League \u2013 one of Asia’s most-watched sporting events \u2013 had ever been sold for more than $1 billion until a consortium backed by American businessman Kal Somani and former Walmart chairman Rob Walton agreed on Tuesday to buy Rajasthan Royals in a deal that Indian media valued at $1.63 billion.<\/p>\n 4 item list<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n However, this record only lasted for a few hours, as an even bigger deal was announced for defending champions Royal Challengers Bangalore on the same day. That team was bought for $1.78 billion by another consortium that includes American billionaire David Blitzer’s Bolt Ventures and American asset manager Blackstone.<\/p>\n Both deals highlight the growing attractiveness of India’s national pastime among international investors looking to be a part of the most popular sport in the world’s most populous country.<\/p>\n Indian cricket great Sourav Ganguly told local reporters, “This is a shocking number.” “But great news for Indian cricket and the road ahead. I think it’s already as big as the NBA.”<\/p>\n The valuations of both teams have seen a huge jump from their original 2008 sale, when liquor baron Vijay Mallya bought RCB for $111.6 million, and Rajasthan for $67 million.<\/p>\n Sports teams overall have become a major target of global investment, as businesses seek to enter new markets abroad and draw spending from their fan base. Deloitte analysts wrote in an outlook published last month that the industry is “entering an era of expansion” \u2014 and private equity deals in sports leagues have surged in recent years.<\/p>\n The IPL, which runs just three months a year, is the shortest format of the game \u2013 known as Twenty20 \u2013 and has become cricket’s most popular property. In 2022, the broadcast rights for the 2023\u201327 cycle were purchased by Disney Star and Reliance Viacom18 for $6.4 billion. Disney has since exited its India business, and the two entities combined to form JioStar in 2025.<\/p>\n In a statement, Blitzer described the IPL as “one of the great growth stories in global sport”.<\/p>\n In 2021, the league was expanded from eight to 10 teams, and two new franchises, Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants, were sold for $670m and $940m respectively.<\/p>\n In comparison, the London Spirit team of the British Cricket League The Hundred was valued at $370 million in 2025 \u2013 the most for any team in that tournament \u2013 \u200b\u200bwhen its partial stake was put up for sale last year.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the past two decades, the IPL has become a global sporting force that has changed the face of Indian cricket, creating enormous value for India,\u201d said Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of Aditya Birla Group, which is part of the consortium that also includes Blitzer. \u201cRCB, as one of the most compelling franchises in the modern game, provides us with a unique platform to extend our legacy across the global sporting arena.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2025 title was RCB’s first, but the celebrations turned tragic when at least 11 people died in a deadly mob attack at the team’s stadium.<\/p>\n The new ownership association will bring a revamped management team for RCB. Aditya Birla director Aryaman Vikram Birla will serve as chairman, while Times of India Group’s Satyan Gajwani will take on the role of vice chairman.<\/p>\n Blitzer already has ownership stakes in several other teams, including the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and the Premier League’s Crystal Palace.<\/p>\n As for Rajasthan, Somani was an existing shareholder and moved to take full control of the franchise in a deal that still requires approval from the Board of Control for Cricket in India, according to Indian media reports. The Arizona-based tech entrepreneur is one of the founders of Motor City Golf Club in the TGL League, which was co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n Walton, 81, is the eldest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton and owner of the NFL’s Denver Broncos.<\/p>\n Although the current valuation of the IPL is still significantly lower than the top global sports franchises in other sports such as the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys or football’s Real Madrid, there is still room to grow.<\/p>\n Cricket entered the US market with the 2024 T20 World Cup \u2013 which India won \u2013 and the sport will return to US shores at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.<\/p>\n Times Group, one of the new co-owners of RCB, has already invested heavily in the US cricket market. It owns Willow, which broadcasts all major cricket matches, including the IPL, primarily in the US.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Walmart has major interests in India. It acquired a majority stake in e-commerce giant Flipkart in 2018, and also controls leading digital payments platform PhonePe as well as other business interests.<\/p>\n There is also a connection between the IPL and Major League Cricket \u2013 a T20 competition that begins in 2023 and features six teams: in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas and Washington, DC.<\/p>\n The MLC is run with the blessing of the IPL franchises \u2013 Chennai Super Kings owns the Texas franchise, while Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians own the Los Angeles and New York teams respectively. The league is expected to grow to eight teams in 2027, with Arizona being a leading contender for one of the new franchises.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Investors from the United States are taking a big step into Indian cricket, with two separate billion-dollar deals being struck in the same day for teams from the country’s most popular sports league. No team in the Indian Premier League \u2013 one of Asia’s most-watched sporting events \u2013 had ever been sold for more than<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[5597,872,10003,7274,947,3460,1219,8714,615,2447,2622],"class_list":{"0":"post-21369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-bet","9":"tag-big","10":"tag-billiondollar","11":"tag-cricket","12":"tag-deals","13":"tag-indian","14":"tag-investors","15":"tag-ipl","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-record","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21371,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21369\/revisions\/21371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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