Planning to take IPL overseas, says Rajiv Shukla

What’s the story?

Rajiv Shukla, the chairman of the Indian Premier League has hinted that the next goal for the league is to set its footprints in the United States of America.

They are planning to introduce fan parks in the USA to capture the attention of the audiences.

“In cities where we don’t host matches, we organise fan parks where we invite people to watch the match on the big screen. So 20,000-30,000 people are coming to the fan parks. Now we are planning to take it overseas, to places like Dubai, the UK and also America,” Shukla was as quoted by news agency AFP.

The details

After another successful season for the IPL, a visibly thrilled Shukla claimed that the IPL was the second most ‘important’ tournament in the world after football’s English Premier League.

Also, the concept of fan parks has proven to be a hit in India as it has enthralled audiences in cities where there are no live matches in stadiums and hence Shukla's estimation about foreign markets might well prove to be a shout in the right direction.

In case you didn’t know…

Star India bought the broadcast rights of this season's IPL for a massive Rs 16,347.5 crore ($US 2.55 billion). This deal will be viable for a period of 5 years between 2018 and 2022.

Hence, every IPL game is worth $8.5 million in Indian television rights, which is a substantial amount and hence this ambitious plan from Rajiv Shukla and the IPL.

What’s next?

With the 11th season of the IPL galloping towards an end, the authorities are bound to be chuffed with the type of response the tournament has got, both in the grounds and also with the television audiences.

Author’s take

For the IPL to grow, even more, it has to look beyond the Indian market and spread its wings all around the globe and hence this new proposal to go overseas and tap the cricketing audiences in markets which have not yet been catered to.