The Indian Premier League's most important export is not Twenty20 cricket. T20 already existed — England's counties had been playing it since 2003. What the IPL invented was a financial structure, and that structure has since been installed in South Africa, the United States, the UAE and, most tellingly, England.
The clearest evidence is who owns the copies. The same corporate groups that own IPL franchises now own teams in the leagues built in the IPL's image — in one case, every single team in a national competition.
This is how a domestic Indian tournament launched in 2008 became the template for professional cricket almost everywhere.
What the IPL Actually Proved
Before 2008, cricket's money came overwhelmingly from international matches. National boards sold broadcast rights to bilateral series and tournaments, and players were paid by their boards. Domestic cricket was a development system, not a business.
The IPL inverted that. It sold club cricket — city franchises, private owners, a player auction, a short window in the calendar — into the largest cricket-watching market on earth, and it worked immediately.
Three design choices did the work, and every league that followed has copied all three:
- Privately owned city franchises, so capital and marketing came from outside the board.
- A player auction with a salary cap, which produced both competitive balance and a compelling annual news event of its own — the mechanics of which we cover in the IPL auction explained.
- A short, protected window, concentrating the entire tournament into a period broadcasters could sell as a season.
The Number That Changed the Argument
For years the IPL could be dismissed as a lucrative regional curiosity. One figure ended that.
When the BCCI sold the IPL's media rights for the 2023–2027 cycle, the package went for ₹48,390 crore across 410 matches. Disney Star retained television rights and Viacom18 took the digital rights, at ₹23,575 crore and ₹23,758 crore respectively.
The per-match figure is what travelled. At roughly ₹105 crore — about $13.44 million per match — the IPL became, by value per game, the second most lucrative sporting property in the world, behind only the NFL at $35.07 million. It had nearly doubled from the previous cycle's ₹54.23 crore per match.
That comparison reframed everything. Cricket administrators everywhere were no longer looking at a successful domestic league; they were looking at the second-highest per-match media value in global sport, generated by a competition that occupies about two months of the year.
Then the Owners Went Shopping
The response was not simply that other boards launched their own T20 leagues. It was that IPL owners bought into them.
South Africa was the most complete takeover. When the SA20 launched for the 2023 season, IPL franchise owners bought all six teams. The naming made the lineage explicit: MI Cape Town, Joburg Super Kings, Sunrisers Eastern Cape, Durban's Super Giants, Paarl Royals and Pretoria Capitals. A national T20 league had become, in ownership terms, an extension of the IPL.
In the United States, Major League Cricket launched in 2023 with IPL-linked groups among its founding franchises — cricket's first serious attempt at building a market rather than monetising one.
In the UAE, the ILT20 arrived the same year, with several IPL owners holding teams.
Reliance Industries, which owns the Mumbai Indians, illustrates the pattern most clearly: it holds teams in South Africa, the United States and the UAE, running one brand across four competitions on four continents.
Why England Was the Turning Point
For a long time England looked like the exception. The Hundred, launched in 2021, was run by the England and Wales Cricket Board with no private franchise owners at all — a deliberately different model.
That ended in 2025, when the ECB sold stakes in the eight teams. IPL owners took four of them:
| The Hundred team | IPL owner | Stake |
|---|---|---|
| Oval Invincibles | Reliance (Mumbai Indians) | 49% |
| Manchester Originals | RPSG (Lucknow Super Giants) | 70% |
| Northern Superchargers | Sun Group (Sunrisers Hyderabad) | 100% |
| Southern Brave | GMR (Delhi Capitals) | 49% |
The valuations were substantial — the Oval Invincibles process valued the franchise at around £123 million, with Reliance paying just over £60 million for its 49%. Non-cricket investors including Tom Brady and Todd Boehly took stakes in other teams.
This mattered beyond the money. England is cricket's oldest establishment, the home of the format's traditional objections to franchise sport. When the ECB chose to sell equity in its own competition — and Indian franchise owners were the buyers — the argument about whether the IPL model was the future was effectively settled.
What the Model Costs
None of this is free, and the costs fall on a different part of cricket than the benefits.
The calendar is the binding constraint. The IPL alone occupies roughly two months. Add the SA20, ILT20, MLC, The Hundred, the Big Bash, the CPL and the rest, and there are few weeks left in which an international series does not overlap with a franchise tournament somewhere.
That overlap creates the second cost: availability. When a league can pay a player more than their national board can, and the two dates clash, the choice is no longer obvious. Several West Indies players have effectively operated as T20 freelancers for years, earning far more from franchise cricket than international cricket could offer. Senior players in other countries have restructured or given up central contracts to preserve league availability.
The ICC has acknowledged the problem, saying it would examine how franchise leagues can be aligned with international commitments and expressing concern about the growing expanse of franchise cricket. Proposals discussed have included limiting how many leagues a player may join in a season while protecting national commitments.
There is a third cost that receives less attention: concentration. A model in which a handful of corporate groups own competitive teams in most of the world's major T20 leagues gives those groups considerable influence over scheduling, player movement and the commercial direction of the sport — influence that sits outside the game's formal governance entirely.
Can Anyone Copy It Without India?
Here is the honest limit on the IPL model, and it is rarely stated plainly.
The IPL's economics rest on the Indian broadcast market. No other cricket market is remotely comparable in scale, which means no other league can generate IPL-like media revenue from its own audience. That is precisely why the copies are financed by Indian capital rather than local capital: the model travels, but the market that makes it work does not.
For host boards, the trade is often still worth taking. A guaranteed franchise fee and a functioning league beat an empty January. But it makes those leagues dependent on the continued interest of a small number of Indian owners — which is a strategic exposure, not a partnership between equals.
The Bottom Line
The IPL's legacy is not that cricket plays more T20. It is that professional cricket is now organised around privately owned city franchises operating in short, protected windows — and that the owners of the original franchises own much of the copy.
For players, this has been transformative: earnings that international cricket alone could never have produced. For host boards, it has been a reliable source of income. For the international game, it has meant a calendar with no slack, national selection competing against club contracts, and a governance question nobody has yet answered.
Start with our IPL hub and the wider cricket coverage hub, or if you are new to the sport, begin with cricket explained for newcomers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the IPL so much more valuable than other cricket leagues?
Scale of audience. The IPL sells into the largest cricket-watching market in the world, which no other league can match. Its 2023–2027 media rights went for ₹48,390 crore across 410 matches, working out at roughly ₹105 crore — about $13.44 million — per game. That made it the second most valuable sporting property in the world by per-match media value, behind only the NFL at $35.07 million.
Do IPL owners really own teams in other countries?
Yes, extensively. When South Africa's SA20 launched in 2023, IPL franchise owners bought all six teams. IPL-linked groups were founding franchises in Major League Cricket in the United States, hold teams in the UAE's ILT20, and in 2025 took stakes in four of the eight teams in England's The Hundred. Reporting indicates every IPL franchise owner except Gujarat Titans' now holds a team in an overseas league.
What is The Hundred and why did IPL owners buy into it?
The Hundred is England's 100-ball franchise competition, launched by the ECB in 2021 and originally board-owned with no private franchises. In 2025 the ECB sold equity stakes in its eight teams. IPL owners bought four: Reliance took 49% of Oval Invincibles, RPSG 70% of Manchester Originals, Sun Group 100% of Northern Superchargers and GMR 49% of Southern Brave.
Is franchise cricket damaging international cricket?
It is competing with it for the same weeks and the same players, which is a structural problem rather than a matter of blame. With the IPL occupying about two months and numerous other leagues filling much of the rest of the year, international series increasingly clash with franchise tournaments. The ICC has said it will look at aligning league and international schedules, and options discussed include limiting how many leagues a player joins per season.
Why do players choose T20 leagues over their national teams?
Usually because the pay is not comparable. A franchise contract can be worth several times what a national board pays, particularly for players from boards with smaller broadcast revenues. When a league window clashes with an international fixture, that gap makes the decision straightforward. Several West Indies players have operated as T20 freelancers for years for precisely this reason.
Could a league outside India ever match the IPL financially?
Not on its own audience, on current evidence. The IPL's revenue reflects the size of the Indian market rather than anything replicable about the format, which is why leagues elsewhere are funded largely by Indian franchise owners rather than by local media deals. The model exports well. The market underneath it does not.
Sources
- ESPNcricinfo — IPL 2023-2027 media rights value breaks record, $13.44 million per match
- ESPNcricinfo — IPL franchise owners buy all six teams in South Africa's new T20 league
- Sky Sports — The Hundred investors: Tom Brady, Todd Boehly, IPL team owners and big businesses all secure stakes
- Business Standard — Four IPL team owners confirmed as strategic partners for The Hundred teams
- Outlook Business — Why IPL owners are buying stakes in The Hundred teams
- The Cricket Monthly — How many leagues can cricket take?
