The Board of Control for Cricket in India has become one of the richest sports bodies in the world, its annual income exceeding the turnover of a large number of private companies.IT IS raining money on Indian cricket. The Board of Control for Cricket in India, the governing body of the game, will rake in over 50 billion rupees over the next three years from the domestic Twenty20 cricket league alone.The rights to regional teams for the Indian Premier League (IPL) were recently auctioned to a group of industrialists and film stars.
The country’s richest industrialist, Mukesh Ambani of the Reliance Group of Industries; the reigning Khan of Bollywood, Shah Rukh; and top liquor manufacturer Vijay Mallya were among the successful bidders for regional IPL franchises.Ambani bid the highest amount of 4.41 billion rupees for Mumbai. Mallya got hometown Bangalore for 4.4 billion rupees, and Shah Rukh with former actress Juhi Chawla bagged Calcutta for 2.96 billion rupees.There was another Bollywood winner in actress Preity Zinta who with industrialist boyfriend Ness Wadia won Mohali (Punjab) for three billion rupees . Chennai went to a cement manufacturer, while Hyderabad was bagged by a local newspaper group. A construction company won the right to the Delhi team.
