Though there are seven franchises up for sale, at least 14 bidders have shown interest by last evening, a top SLC official revealed.
“We have already issued 14 applications and we can see that there is serious competition already in progress in the race to claim the prestige of owning a franchise. Each of those applications can only be collected after a payment of Rs. 50,000. So we know for sure that all those people would be genuinely interested in the process,” added the official.
SLC has set a base price of $3 million (Rs. 402 million) for the franchises which may appear heavy in Sri Lankan standards but dwarfs when compared to the Indian Board’s financial colossus Indian Premier League (IPL). IPL franchises each had a fixed minimum price of $50 million (SL Rs. 1.7 billion) when the tournament was launched in 2008 but it later increased to $225 million (SL Rs. 7.65 billion) when two teams were added in 2010.
The SLPL will lease out seven teams for a period of seven years as an initial move. SLC called for interested parties to bid for the franchises through newspaper advertisements last week. The deadline to submit bids is June 25, while the names of successful bidders will be announced the same day. Prior to that, a bid clarification meeting is scheduled for June 21. Interested entities can bid for a maximum of three franchises. In the first edition of SLPL, Twenty20, the seven provincial teams will play a total of 24 matches at two venues, in Colombo and Pallekele. The tournament is scheduled from August 10 to 31 just before the ICC Twenty20 World Cup to be hosted by Sri Lanka.
Each franchise team will be allowed a maximum of 18 players in their squad with a ceiling of six overseas players in each squad. Just like the IPL, the teams can field only four overseas players in the playing eleven with at least one local player under the age of 21.
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