With this, GMR has made its third investment in franchise cricket and the Adani group has made its second investment. Both the conglomerates recently acquired teams at the UAE T20 league. GMR is also the co-owner of Delhi Capitals team in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The upcoming edition of the league will be a four-team franchise model and will be played from 16 September in India.
This season will have a new format while the last season was more on the lines of country-wise three teams: India, Rest of Asia and Rest of the World. The other two team owners are yet to be formally announced. “Both these companies are exponents in this particular business. It is good for us to bring such large giants in as our partners," said Raman Raheja, CEO and co-founder of Legends League Cricket.
“Our relationship with cricket started with our IPL franchise Delhi Capitals. What makes this association sweeter is the fact that this league will feature some of the best cricketers who have played a very definitive role in popularising this sport. To see them perform in India together for the first time is a dream come true for many fans including myself," Kiran Kumar Grandhi, MD, GMR Group said.
Adani Sportsline is privileged to have the opportunity to own and manage one of the four teams in the league, said Pranav Adani, director, Adani Enterprises.
In the last season, the overall expenditure of the league was $7 million for the entire project. This season, Raheja anticipates this should go up to more than about $15 million. “We’ve made this whole business model to work in a way that teams should be able to break even in the first season. This league will cost about an eighth of what it would cost to take a franchise in any other cricket league," he added.
The second season of the league will also have cricketers who have recently retired and are in their early late 30s or early 40s barring a couple of exceptions who are older and are very physically fit. The idea was to have cricketers who can still offer competitive cricket on the field. There are 75 cricketers participating in the league and the total pool of players would be over 100. In terms of players, there will be a representation from 11 countries which are all ODI playing right from India to Zimbabwe with big names like Eoin Morgan who retired recently, Chris Gayle, Jonty Rodes and so on. Indian players include Yusuf Pathan, Virender Sehwag, M. Kaif, RP Singh and others. LLC will be starting from Eden Gardens at Kolkata followed by Lucknow, New Delhi, Cuttack & Jodhpur. The play-offs and finals are expected to be in Dehradun.
