Mumbai: Seeking to cash in on the cricket craze in India, corporate bigwigs, including Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya, and celluloid stars Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta on Thursday won sponsorship for high-profile teams for the upcoming Indian Premier League.
In the process, IPL is richer by a whopping about Rs 3,000 crore or $724 million even before it launches its Twenty20 tournament in April that would feature the most prominent cricket stars across the globe, including Aussie captain Ricky Ponting and India's M S Dhoni.
India's wealthiest corporate house Reliance Industries' promoter Mukesh Ambani was the top bidder with an offering of $111.9 million, or over Rs440 crore, to bag the Mumbai team defeating, liquor giant Vijay Mallya, who won the Bangalore team for just three lakh dollars less.
The other winners were: Shah Rukh Khan (Kolkata), Preity Zinta (Chandigarh), Emerging Media (Jaipur), Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad), India Cements (Chennai) and GMR Group (Delhi).
Preity Zinta put in her bid in association with friend Nes Wadia of the Bombay Dyeing group, while Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta joined the Shah Rukh-led consortium.
However, India's leading private sector lender ICICI Bank, retail giant Future Group and Sahara group, the current sponsor of the Indian cricket team, failed to get a pie of the tournament that is being structured on a corporate pattern.
Announcing the details of winners for the eight team whose sponsorship was up for grabs, BCCI Vice-President Lalit Modi, credited for bringing in unheard of riches for BCCI, said, "It was a great success. There were 11 eligible bidders for eight of the 12 cities. There were more than one bid for each city and Mukesh Ambani's successful bid of $111.9 million for Mumbai region was the highest."
The eight successful bids, for a period of 10 years, have enriched the BCCI's already swelling coffers and, added to its share of the media rights sold for $1.026 billion, it would fetch the Board $100 million annually, according to BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah.