Indian Premier League: Pune, Rajkot replace suspended CSK, RR for two years

BCCI awards two new Indian Premier League (IPL) teams to Intex and New Rising.

New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday awarded the two new Indian Premier League (IPL) teams to Intex and New Rising.

Mobile phone manufacturer Intex group will pay 10 crores for Rajkot, while Sanjeev Goenka-owned New Rising consortium​ will shell out for Pune.

"People want to associate with cricket and IPL for reasons beyond money and economics," IPL commissioner Rajeev Shukla told ESNPCricinfo.

Goenka is also the co-owner of Indian Super League's Kolkata franchise.

Both the winning bids went into the negative.

Both new teams will not be a slice of the revenues that franchises get from the IPL's central revenue pool.

News: Sanjeev Goenka’s New Rising wins bid for Pune team. Intex wins bid for Rajkot team for next two seasons of vivo IPL #vivoIPL

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) December 8, 2015

"They won't take a single penny from the BCCI. In fact they will pay the BCCI," Board Secretary Anurag Thakur told reporters after a meeting of the IPL Governing Council here.

The teams were sold through the reverse bidding process for which the base price was set at Rs 40 crore and bidders had to quote an amount less than that. The lowest bidder was given the franchises.

The process was necessitated by the suspension of CSK and RR for the involvement some of their officials and co-owners in the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal, which was probed by the Supreme Court-appointed Justice (retd) R M Lodha committee.

However, both the CSK and RR will be allowed back in the league after serving out their suspension.

The interim franchises, which have been picked today, will be participate in a draft to first retain their share of players.

Players from CSK and RR will be divided into two groups of capped and uncapped and the top names will be sold through the draft system. The two new teams will have a minimum of Rs 40 crore and a maximum of Rs 66 crore to buy their players.

The other three bidders in fray were Harsh Goenka of RPG properties, Axis Clinical and Chettinad Cement, all of whom quoted higher bids than New Rising and Intex Mobiles.

(With Agency inputs)