The Adani Group is all set to own a cricket franchise. The Ahmedabad-based business group who fell marginally short to acquire the rights of an IPL franchise is likely to sign up for a side as the Emirates Cricket Board are all set to launch a T20 league. The tournament has been named UAE T20 League.
The league has an elite list of owners as the likes of Mukesh Ambani, Shah Rukh Khan are also in line to own a team in the league. As per a report in Cricbuzz, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance, Shah Rukh Khan of Bollywood, Kiran Kumar Granthi of GMR, the Glazer family that owns EPL club Manchester United, Rajesh Sharma who owns the Dubai-based Capri Global company, and the Adani Group are likely the ones who will own the 6 teams in the league.
Adani Group fell short to get an IPL franchise last year
Sources revealed that the talking between Adani Group and Emirates Cricket Board are at the final stage to seal the deal. It has been learned that there are many other candidates who were interested to get a team in the league. The owners of some IPL franchises like Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, and Sunrisers Hyderabad also showed interest. It’s likely the deal will be finalized within a week.
Earlier Adani Group fell short to own an IPL franchise as they made a bid of 5100 crores when BCCI invited bids for two new IPL franchises. Eventually, Sanjiv Goenka owned group RPSG (7090 crores) and CVC Capital (5625 crores) were the two highest bidders who got the rights.
The league was originally scheduled to take place in January-February but couldn’t go ahead. Now the organizers are exploiting the window of July-August. The tournament won’t have lots of local players as it will largely depend on overseas players.
According to the Cricbuzz report, the Emirates board has already sold the media rights of the league, to Zee for 10 years for a price of USD 120 million.
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