The Indian Premier League did not become political by accident. It was political at birth, political in design, and political in survival. The mistake most writing on the IPL makes is treating its controversies-spot-fixing, ownership scandals, conflicts of interest-as deviations from an otherwise “sporting” institution. In reality, these controversies are not bugs; they are features. The IPL functions less like a sports league and more like a privately governed marketplace of influence, where proximity to power matters more than formal rules.
To understand this, it helps to compare the IPL with institutions that failed. The Indian Hockey League collapsed despite an Olympic pedigree. The National Football League of India never gained traction despite corporate backing. The IPL, meanwhile, survived betting scandals that would have shut down leagues elsewhere. It survived a Supreme Court-appointed committee calling its parent body structurally compromised. It survived the arrest of a team owner’s son-in-law for spot-fixing. It even survived being run out of South Africa at short notice in 2009 because Indian elections were deemed more politically important than the tournament itself. No ordinary sports league survives this. A politically embedded one does.
From the outset, the IPL was designed to be indispensable-not just to fans, but to politicians, broadcasters, advertisers, and state governments. That is why it could never be dismantled.
Indian Cricket Before the IPL: Power Without Accountability
Long before the first IPL ball was bowled in 2008, the Board of Control for Cricket in India had already become the most powerful sporting body in the country-and one of the least accountable. By the early 2000s, the BCCI was earning more than most international sports federations despite technically being a “society” registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act. It received tax exemptions as a charitable organisation while signing broadcast deals worth hundreds of crores.
The BCCI's political nature was not subtle. Sharad Pawar, then Union Agriculture Minister, served as BCCI president. Anurag Thakur, later a Union Minister, rose through Himachal Pradesh’s cricket association. Arun Jaitley, while Leader of the Opposition and later Finance Minister, controlled the Delhi and District Cricket Association for years, during which the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium was controversially renamed after him while he was still alive-an act that would be unthinkable in a transparent institution.
This matters because the IPL did not corrupt Indian cricket; it amplified existing structures. The BCCI already functioned like a political federation, with state associations operating as vote banks. Smaller associations with little cricketing output, like those in the North-East, had the same voting power as Mumbai or Tamil Nadu. Loyalty mattered more than performance. This exact logic later reappeared in franchise allocations, governance decisions, and disciplinary outcomes in the IPL.
When India liberalised its economy in the 1990s, cricket followed. Sponsorship replaced patronage. Television replaced gate receipts. The 1996 World Cup showed administrators how nationalism could be monetised without state involvement. By the time India won the 2007 T20 World Cup, the groundwork had already been laid for a league that would combine entertainment, private capital, and regulatory opacity.
The IPL was not a leap. It was a logical next step.
The Birth of the IPL: Crisis as Opportunity
The IPL emerged from two converging moments. First, the success of the Indian team in the 2007 T20 World Cup, captained by MS Dhoni, a player who himself symbolised a new, marketable India, small-town, media-friendly, brand-neutral. Second, the threat of the Indian Cricket League (ICL), backed by Subhash Chandra’s Zee Group, which had already signed players like Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-Haq, exposed how vulnerable the BCCI’s monopoly actually was.
The BCCI’s response was not reform; it was annihilation. Players who joined the ICL were banned from Indian cricket. State associations were pressured. Stadiums were denied. At the same time, Lalit Modi, then Vice President of the BCCI, fast-tracked the IPL with astonishing speed. Franchise auctions were announced, rules were written as they went along, and media rights were bundled into deals so large that no competitor could enter the market afterwards.
The 2008 franchise auction itself was a political event disguised as a business exercise. Vijay Mallya, already a Member of Parliament, bought Royal Challengers Bangalore. Mukesh Ambani’s IndiaWin Sports acquired the Mumbai Indians, aligning India’s most powerful corporate house with India’s most powerful sport. Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia bought Kings XI Punjab, bringing Bollywood and old-money industrial families into the mix. The Rajasthan Royals went to an obscure consortium led by Emerging Media, later revealing how opaque ownership structures could be hidden behind shell companies.
The message was clear: the IPL would not belong to players or fans. It would belong to those who already wielded influence, political, financial, or cultural.
Why the IPL’s Governance Was Intentionally Weak
Unlike the English Premier League or the NFL, the IPL never established an independent commissioner with real power. The league was run by the BCCI, whose office-bearers often had direct or indirect interests in franchises. N Srinivasan was both the BCCI president and the owner of India Cements, which owned the Chennai Super Kings. This was not a loophole; it was openly defended until it became legally untenable.
When Gurunath Meiyappan, Srinivasan’s son-in-law and a CSK team official, was arrested in 2013 for betting-related offences, the conflict of interest was undeniable. Yet Srinivasan refused to step aside initially. The BCCI argued that Meiyappan was merely a “cricket enthusiast,” despite being seen in team dugouts and decision-making spaces. This semantic gymnastics worked for years because the IPL’s rulebook was written by the same people it was supposed to regulate.
Even punishments reflected political calculus. Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were suspended for two years, but the franchises were not terminated. Their brand value was preserved. Their fan bases were retained. When they returned in 2018, they were welcomed back as if nothing structural had gone wrong. Compare this to how individual players, like S Sreesanth, were sidelined for years, long after courts had granted relief. Administrators were insulated. Labour was expendable.
Franchise Ownership: Why Losing Teams Still Make Sense
If the IPL were judged purely as a business, several franchises should not exist. Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals) for most of their early years, and even Royal Challengers Bangalore, until very recently, ran at operational losses when you strip away brand valuation arguments. Yet owners stayed. In some cases, they doubled down. This only makes sense if franchise ownership is read not as a profit-and-loss exercise, but as an access instrument.
Take Vijay Mallya’s Royal Challengers Bangalore. By 2008, Kingfisher Airlines was already bleeding. Between 2008 and 2012, the airline accumulated thousands of crores in debt, missed salary payments, and defaulted on loans. Yet Mallya paid a premium for an IPL franchise, signed Rahul Dravid and later Kevin Pietersen and Chris Gayle, and spent aggressively on marketing. The franchise became a lifestyle extension of the Kingfisher brand, parties, models, and visibility. This visibility mattered far more than cricketing success. Mallya’s proximity to power, banks, and regulators continued for years after RCB’s launch, long after the airline should have been grounded permanently. The IPL did not cause this protection, but it reinforced his relevance.
Mumbai Indians offer a cleaner example of strategic ownership. Reliance Industries did not buy MI to make money off ticket sales. It bought MI to control a narrative. Mumbai is India’s financial capital. The franchise’s branding leaned heavily on professionalism, stability, and infrastructure-exactly the values Reliance wants associated with itself. The team’s access to prime real estate for training facilities, its smooth relationship with the Maharashtra government, and its ability to retain star players like Rohit Sharma long-term all reflect corporate-state alignment. MI became a showcase of how power looks when it is well-organised rather than flamboyant.
Chennai Super Kings was different. It was openly political. India Cements’ ownership, combined with N Srinivasan’s role in the BCCI, created a concentration of authority unmatched in global sport. CSK’s extraordinary consistency in playoffs in nearly every season until suspension cannot be reduced to team culture alone. Player retention rules were bent in subtle ways. MS Dhoni’s salary structures, staff continuity, and strategic patience were enabled by governance proximity. When the 2013 scandal broke, CSK was punished only to the extent necessary to preserve the league’s legitimacy, not to dismantle the power structure behind it.
Rajasthan Royals, meanwhile, exposed how opaque IPL ownership really was. The team was initially sold at a low valuation, only for later investigations to reveal multiple layers of shell companies and undisclosed shareholders. Shilpa Shetty’s stake became a public issue only because it was visible. Most others were not. The lesson was clear: the IPL allowed money to enter cricket without asking where it came from, as long as it stayed quiet.
What all these cases show is that IPL franchises operate like elite clubs. They offer visibility, legitimacy, and proximity to decision-makers. Whether they win trophies is secondary. Whether they remain plugged into the network is not.
Media Rights: Where the Real Power Sits
If franchise owners are visible power, media companies are structural power. The IPL’s political influence expanded exponentially with each broadcast deal.
In 2008, Sony paid around USD 1.03 billion for 10 years of IPL rights. This was already considered inflated. In 2017, Star India paid INR 16,347 crore for five years. In 2022, Disney Star and Viacom18 together paid over INR 48,000 crore for a mix of TV and digital rights. These are not sports deals; they are market capture exercises.
The reason broadcasters pay this much is not cricket alone. The IPL delivers guaranteed attention in a fragmented media landscape. During IPL season, prime-time news viewership drops. Political debates soften. Advertising money reroutes. This gives broadcasters leverage-not just over consumers, but over narratives.
Coverage choices reflect this. During the 2013 spot-fixing scandal, television channels focused obsessively on players Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila, and Ankeet Chavan. Studio panels debated morality, discipline, and “role models.” Meanwhile, administrators were treated cautiously. N Srinivasan’s statements were carried without aggressive questioning. Conflict of interest was discussed as a technical issue, not a governance failure. This framing mattered. It localised guilt downward.
The same pattern appeared during COVID. In 2020 and 2021, the IPL was framed as a symbol of resilience. The bio-bubble breaches, the mid-season suspension, and the infection of players and support staff were reported, but never politicised. At a time when migrant workers were walking hundreds of kilometres home, the IPL continued with charter flights and five-star isolation. The contrast was stark, but media narratives insulated the league by calling it “essential for morale.”
Digital platforms intensified this control. Fantasy leagues, official apps, and social media tie-ins turned fans into data points. Engagement was monetised aggressively, but dissent was filtered. Players speaking about mental health were amplified only when their stories could be framed as individual struggles, not systemic pressure. When Hardik Pandya was dropped from the Mumbai Indians captaincy after public backlash, the discourse focused on form and leadership rather than the franchise’s branding recalibration.
The media did not just report the IPL. It disciplined it.
Auctions: The Performance of Fairness
The IPL auction is presented as proof that the league is meritocratic. Anyone can bid. Everyone has a price. This is theatre.
Look at how uncapped Indian players are treated versus mid-tier overseas players. Domestic players from less visible state teams often enter auctions with low base prices and remain unsold, regardless of recent Ranji performances. Meanwhile, overseas all-rounders with modest international records fetch inflated sums because they offer flexibility, marketing appeal, and short-term impact. This is not irrational; it reflects what franchises value. But it exposes the myth that auctions reward performance alone.
Captaincy choices reveal even more. Leadership roles are rarely given to players without brand stability. KL Rahul, despite inconsistent tournament results as captain, retained leadership roles because he fit a marketable, controlled persona. Contrast this with players like Ravichandran Ashwin, tactically astute but outspoken, who was repeatedly shuffled between teams and denied long-term leadership roles. The league rewards compliance as much as skill.
Retention rules also favour stability for powerful franchises. Teams with strong backroom continuity-MI, CSK-consistently extract maximum value from retentions, while weaker franchises rebuild endlessly. This creates a self-reinforcing hierarchy. Officially, every team starts equal. Practically, some teams start with institutional memory and others with churn.
The auction, like elections, offers choice without equal power.
Regional Politics: Franchises as State-Level Power Projects
IPL teams are sold as city-based entities, but in practice, they function as regional political symbols. State governments understand this, which is why franchises receive treatment that ordinary sporting bodies never do: tax concessions, land access, infrastructure upgrades, and regulatory leniency.
Consider Maharashtra, the Mumbai Indians play at Wankhede Stadium, a state-owned facility managed by the Mumbai Cricket Association. The stadium has received repeated public funding for upgrades, justified as “cricket development,” even though its primary commercial beneficiary during IPL season is a private franchise owned by India’s largest corporate house. The same state government has, at various points, imposed entertainment taxes on live performances and cultural events while negotiating IPL-related levies quietly. Cricket is treated as civic pride, not commerce.
Tamil Nadu offers an even clearer example. The Tamil Nadu government consistently supported CSK as a cultural asset of Chennai. During the 2018 Cauvery water dispute, protests forced CSK to move its home games out of the state. What followed was revealing. Political parties publicly claimed solidarity with farmers, but behind the scenes, there was pressure to restore CSK’s presence as quickly as possible because the team had become a symbol of Chennai’s national visibility. When CSK returned in 2019, the political resistance evaporated. Identity had been recalibrated.
Delhi’s case shows how the absence of success affects political enthusiasm. For years, the Delhi Daredevils failed both on the field and in capturing public imagination. The Delhi government showed minimal interest in leveraging the franchise for cultural capital. Only after the rebranding to Delhi Capitals and the emergence of young Indian players like Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant did the franchise start appearing in city-level promotional narratives. Political attention follows popularity, not vice versa.
Smaller markets reveal exclusion more starkly. Cities like Indore, Kochi, and Ahmedabad have world-class stadiums, often built or upgraded using public funds, but lack permanent franchises. Kochi Tuskers Kerala was terminated after one season following financial disputes. The Kerala government publicly protested, but the franchise was not revived. Kerala lacked leverage within the BCCI power structure. Gujarat, by contrast, received franchises repeatedly despite earlier failures because it aligned with broader political currents and infrastructural ambitions.
Franchises, then, are not evenly distributed sporting entities. They are political rewards.
The 2013 Spot-Fixing Scandal: Accountability’s Breaking Point
The 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal remains the clearest demonstration of how power shields itself. When Delhi Police arrested S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila, and Ankeet Chavan, the narrative immediately narrowed to player morality. Press conferences spoke of “betrayal” and “shame.” What went largely unexamined was why the ecosystem made such actions low-risk and high-reward.
The real rupture came with Gurunath Meiyappan. His arrest connected betting directly to a franchise’s ownership circle. For the first time, the IPL’s structure-not just individuals-was implicated. Yet the institutional response was delayed. Internal probes stalled. The BCCI questioned police jurisdiction. N Srinivasan refused to step down as BCCI president, arguing that personal relationships did not constitute conflicts of interest.
Only after sustained public pressure did the Supreme Court intervene, appointing the Lodha Committee. This intervention was extraordinary because it acknowledged what everyone else avoided: the BCCI was incapable of regulating itself. The committee recommended age limits, cooling-off periods, separation of roles, and, most importantly, a ban on administrators owning teams.
The reaction from the BCCI was defensive, not reformist. Implementation was partial. Cooling-off periods were diluted. State associations resisted changes. Srinivasan eventually stepped aside, but the structural logic remained intact. When CSK and Rajasthan Royals were suspended for two years, the punishment was calibrated. The franchises lost seasons, not existence. Owners lost face temporarily, not control permanently.
Compare this with player punishment. Sreesanth, despite later court relief, effectively lost his career. Chandila disappeared from professional cricket. The asymmetry was clear. Labour absorbed the damage. Capital waited it out.
Judiciary vs Cricket: Why Reform Stalled
The Lodha Committee moment is often cited as proof that institutions can be corrected through judicial action. The reality is more disappointing. Courts can expose problems. They cannot dismantle networks.
After the Supreme Court ordered structural reforms, compliance became procedural. The BCCI rewrote its constitution but resisted its spirit. Age limits forced out some administrators, only for their protégés to step in. Cooling-off periods were circumvented by rotating roles across committees. State associations delayed adoption, citing federal autonomy.
More importantly, no alternative governance model was created. Players did not gain representation. Independent directors remained symbolic. Transparency did not extend to franchise finances. The IPL continued under the same commercial logic, just with better legal insulation.
The judiciary corrected excesses without questioning fundamentals. The IPL remained a private league controlling a public obsession, governed by a body accountable to no electorate.
Labour Politics: The Invisible Majority
For every MS Dhoni or Virat Kohli, there are dozens of domestic players whose IPL careers last one or two seasons. These players live on short-term contracts with no guarantees. If they are injured, released, or replaced, there is no pension, no insurance continuity, and no grievance mechanism.
Take the Indian uncapped players who enter the IPL at base prices. One poor season, one injury, or one tactical shift can end their league prospects. Domestic cricket does not compensate financially. Many return to Ranji Trophy with reputations that now work against them-“IPL rejects” rather than developing professionals.
Support staff face even sharper precarity. Physiotherapists, analysts, net bowlers, logistics workers, and ground staff are hired seasonally. During COVID, several were released mid-season when the tournament was suspended. Public narratives focused on player inconvenience. Workers were rarely mentioned.
Cheerleaders’ experiences expose the gendered layer of this labour hierarchy. Many were hired through third-party agencies, paid inconsistently, and subjected to moral policing by local authorities. When scandals broke, franchises distanced themselves immediately, framing cheerleaders as external contractors. Responsibility dissolved the moment scrutiny appeared.
There is no union. There is no collective bargaining. The IPL sells glamour, but runs on disposable labour.
Conclusion: What the IPL Really Normalised
The Indian Premier League did not corrupt Indian cricket. It revealed what Indian cricket had already become and taught the country how to live with it. Over seventeen seasons, the IPL has normalised a structure in which enormous power operates without corresponding accountability, where spectacle substitutes scrutiny, and where success is celebrated without asking who absorbs the costs.
The league survives scandals not because it is resilient, but because it is useful. It is useful to politicians who benefit from the emotional insulation cricket provides during moments of social stress. It is useful to corporations that convert cultural visibility into regulatory access and reputational cover. It is useful to media houses that rely on predictable attention cycles in an otherwise fragmented market. Each stakeholder has something to lose if the IPL is fundamentally questioned, so questioning is contained, redirected, or postponed.
The most telling feature of the IPL is not its wealth, but its asymmetry. Administrators accused of conflicts of interest retire comfortably. Franchise owners wait out suspensions. Broadcasters renegotiate rights. Players, support staff, and peripheral workers bear the consequences quietly. Careers end without hearings. Contracts lapse without explanation. Silence is rewarded; resistance is remembered.
The IPL also reshaped how success is imagined. It presents a world where access masquerades as merit, where loyalty to institutions matters more than challenging them, and where compliance is framed as professionalism. Young players learn early that talent alone is insufficient. They learn which opinions are safe, which gestures attract sponsorship, and which silences ensure retention. Fans, meanwhile, are trained to care deeply about outcomes while remaining distant from structures. Victory is personal; governance is abstract.
None of this makes the IPL uniquely evil. It makes it revealing. The league mirrors the broader Indian political economy, where private power routinely performs public functions without public oversight, and where reform is allowed only to the extent that it does not threaten the network itself. The IPL is not an exception to Indian democracy; it is one of its most efficient expressions.
Loving the IPL, then, does not require pretending it is apolitical. It requires acknowledging that its brilliance and its compromises are inseparable. The league delivers high-quality cricket precisely because it concentrates power, controls labour, manages narratives, and discourages disruption. The price of that efficiency is borne unevenly, mostly by those without microphones.