Women's IPL franchises fetch $572 million for Indian board

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The world s most affluent cricket board, India, got further richer by $572.72 million after unveiling five franchises for an Indian Premier League-style T20 tournament for the women on Wednesday.

Since 2018, the Indian cricket board (BCCI) has been staging a three-team Women s T20 Challenge along side the hugely popular IPL for the men and faced demands to start a full-fledged women s tournament.

The owners of IPL s Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore franchises are among the five entities who purchased teams in the Women s Premier League (WPL), which will be played in March.

The Adani group made the highest bid of approximately $158 million to buy the Ahmedabad franchise, while Capri Global Holdings Private Limited agreed to pay $92.84 million for Lucknow.

"Today is a historic day in cricket as the bidding for teams of inaugural WPL broke the records of the inaugural men s IPL in 2008," tweeted BCCI secretary Jay Shah.

"This marks the beginning of a revolution in women s cricket and paves the way for a transformative journey ahead not only for our women cricketers but for the entire sports fraternity."

The BCCI has already sold the tournament s media rights for the next five years to Viacom 18 for $117 million which translates into per-match-value of $870,393.

"This is a historic moment for Indian cricket, and we are delighted to be a part of it," said Nita Ambani of Mumbai Indians, which also owns teams in men s T20 tournaments in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

Former India captain Mithali Raj predicted "exciting times" for women s cricket, while England batter Danni Wyatt and former Australia all-rounder Lisa Sthalekar also took to Twitter to welcome the new tournament.