Come April and its IPL time - the biggest cricketing circus in the world attracting big bucks. In its 11th edition, the Indian Premier League is ever changing getting ever bigger. A look at how Indian cricket’s premier league crafted its success.

The Indian Premier League was designed in a way by Lalit Modi to bring in the young and opulent cricket loving crowd of India together. A twenty-over-each-side carnival that has all the ingredients was like a circus coming to town. The Indian Premier League is in its 11th season and it is undoubtedly India’s most success story because of its business module. It was an enticing concept but the revenue outcomes were never guaranteed. In the end, the huge bets have mostly paid off. The Board of Control for Cricket in India is many times richer and the brand value of the IPL, according to Duff & Phelps, is currently about $4.2 billion. And most important thing is that the Indian cricketers have benefited the most. They have earned good money — cricketers across all formats — and cricket is now seen as a career option. Other sports in India are also trying the franchise-based league model.

Lalit Modi, had conceptualised the league a decade back when he had the right amount of star power by signing on the world’s best players. He then garnered broadcasting and Bollywood support to make the event a huge potential success.

The reason for the formation of this league was mainly due to the two landmark events of 2007.

The first being India’s magical victory in the 2007 inaugural T20 World Cup, under Dhoni and the second was Subhash Chandra’s attempt to do a Kerry Packer. He tried to end the BCCI’s monopoly on cricket in the country by starting a rival Indian Cricket League. A few marquee international players who joined the ICL were banished but soon the BCCI had realized that they would soon have to offer something better. And this is when Lalit Modi crafted the IPL.

India’s rich and famous came together to form their respective franchises, and the presence of Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta helped create the buzz and frenzy.

The future of the league was a bit uncertain, though, when bids were called for from eight would-be IPL franchises at the base price of $400 million, in January 2008. But BCCI was more than pleasantly surprised when $724 million was paid, just to buy the brand names!

But simultaneously very innovative strategies were developed to raise money. The franchises sold every nook and corner on players’ jerseys and kits. Additional breaks called ‘Strategic Timeout’ were taken during the games for teams to strategize. The format twenty-twenty, in essence, is meant to be a fast paced game and strategic timeout only delayed it. IPL, was meant to be a money spinning machine and the timeout was in fact strategically placed to gather maximum views and for generating extra advertisement spots. The television commentators were made to utter the sponsors’ name with every six hit and each catch taken. The sponsors have continued to keep their faith in Brand IPL. For instance, the current title sponsor Vivo has paid about the same amount for two years that the first title sponsor DLF paid for five years.

The success hasn’t come without costs. The tournament has had its darker side surface regularly in the past few years. N. Srinivasan then senior board official later rose to become BCCI president and also the director of India Cements, the company which owned the Chennai Super Kings franchise had conflict of interests as the former captain of the CSK team, M.S. Dhoni, was an employee of the same company. Srinivasan’s son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, was indicted by the Mudgal committee on charges that amount to insider trading. Raj Kundra, a part owner of the Rajasthan Royals franchise, faced similar charges

Players have been arrested and suspended on charges of spot-fixing. Lalit Modi has himself admitted to rigging the players’ auction in favour of N. Srinivasan, his former boss. Recently the Supreme Court of India had to step in and had ordered running Indian cricket through a Committee of Administrators.