Pune and Kochi to be the New IPL Franchise

It’s pouring money in IPL. The extravaganza scaled a new high yesterday with Sahara and Rendezvous Sports becoming the two new franchisee to join IPL. Sahara bid for the city of Pune while a little known Rendezvous Sports bid for the city of Kochi. The two teams were sold for a record sum of $703 million. The last eight teams were auctioned at a price $624.7 million together. Thus these two new teams are valued more that the eight teams put together.

The Sahara adventure sports ltd. bid $370 million and Rendezvous Sports bid $330 million for the two teams. These bids are more than three times what the Reliance group lead by MR Mukesh Ambani paid for the Mumbai Indians which was the costliest franchisee in last auction. Along with Sahara and Rendezvous Sports there were three other bidders: Adani Group, VC digital solution (Videocon) who was apparently backed by Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan and a Pune consortium. Apart from Pune and Kochi other cities for which bids were submitted were Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Kanpur, Dharmashala, Vizag, Rajkot, Cuttack, Baroda, Indore and Gwalior.

Sahara has been associated with Indian cricket from long time. It sponsors team India. Apart from Rendezvous sports the Kochi team is co-owned by Rosy Blues, Parinee developers, Anchor group and Kerela food products company Elite group.

Along with Pune, Sahara had bid for two other cities Ahmedabad and Nagpur. They finally settled with the Pune citing proximity to Mumbai and infrastructure as the reasons. Kochi became the fourth team from south to join IPL along with the present Banglore, Chennai and Hydrabad. The player’s auction for the teams is expected to happen in the month of September later this year. The two new teams will be joining the fourth edition of the IPL in 2011. With Pune and Kochi the number of teams in the league becomes 10 thus leading to increase in the number of matches from current 60 to 94 if the present format of the tourney continues. So get ready for more fun and more action from next year.

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