The IPL is the richest T20 league on the planet. And yet, according to its founder, it's leaving Rs 2,400 crore on the table every single season.
Former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi has gone on record to say the current structure of the league is costing the BCCI and franchises a massive chunk of IPL revenue loss — one that could have been avoided entirely. He made these claims in a conversation with Sportstar, and the numbers he put forward are hard to argue with.
Modi's math is straightforward. If you follow IPL closely, you've probably never seen this breakdown laid out this clearly before.
"For every game, the BCCI gets 50 per cent, and the remaining 50 per cent is distributed to teams. Consequently, teams are now losing out on 20 games. It is a contractual obligation, given the fees they are paying, to provide them with home-and-away fixtures," he said.
He didn't stop there.
"The home-and-away format is where the value lies. If there is no space in the calendar, do not increase the number of teams. It is as simple as that. That is not what we sold. Has everybody signed off on this? I guarantee they have not."
Modi's frustration isn't just philosophical — it's commercial. "Why are they not playing home and away? There are excuses, but it is a contractual obligation and a commercial transaction for the teams," he added.
The original IPL design had every franchise playing every other team twice — once at home, once away. That's a double round-robin structure, and it's exactly what franchises were sold on when they paid their fees.
But here's the real question: what broke that plan?
When Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans joined the league in 2022, the roster expanded from eight teams to ten. Adding two teams without expanding the calendar created a problem that hasn't been fixed since. A full home-and-away cycle with 10 teams would require 90 league stage matches, plus three playoff matches and a final — 94 total. The IPL currently runs 70 league stage matches and four marquee clashes instead.
That gap of 20 matches is precisely what Modi is pointing to. And whether BCCI acts on this is another matter entirely — this depends on calendar availability, bilateral series commitments, and broadcaster negotiations, none of which have a clean resolution right now.
Modi's calculation is the clearest part of his argument. "If there were 94 matches today on a home-and-away basis at Rs 118 crore per game, the media rights alone would be worth an extra Rs 2,400 crore. That is Rs 2,400 crore in additional revenue for the BCCI," he explained.
And it doesn't end at the BCCI level.
"Of this, Rs 1,200 crore would have gone to the 10 teams, Rs 120 crore each, and team values would automatically have been higher."
That last point matters. You've probably seen headlines about Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Rajasthan Royals selling for record valuations recently. Modi's point is that those numbers could have been even higher — franchise value is directly tied to revenue per season, and 20 fewer home games means 20 fewer revenue days for every team.
Why isn't IPL played in a home and away format anymore?
Short answer: ten teams, not enough calendar space. The original plan was for each team to face every other team twice — once at home, once away — but that structure worked when there were eight teams, not ten. Inside Sport India When Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans were added in 2022, the total matches needed jumped to 94. BCCI didn't expand the window to fit them. So the home-away format got quietly dropped, and franchises have been losing match-day revenue ever since.
According to Lalit Modi, the current rate works out to Rs 118 crore per match. That lines up with the broader 2023–27 media rights deal, where the league sold broadcast rights for around US$6.4 billion — valuing each IPL match at approximately $13.4 million. Wikipedia BCCI keeps 50% of that central pool. The other 50% is split among franchises based on the revenue-sharing model.
In October 2021, RPSG Group and CVC Capital won closed bids for the two new franchises — paying ₹7,000 crore and ₹5,200 crore respectively — which became Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans. Wikipedia That expansion changed the schedule math completely. It's also when the double round-robin format — every team playing every other team twice — became structurally impossible without a longer season window.
It varies by season and deal cycle. For IPL 2023, the 10 teams collectively received Rs 4,670 crore from BCCI's central revenue pool — up sharply from Rs 2,205 crore received in IPL 2022. Business Standard That works out to roughly Rs 467 crore per team on average, though the actual split isn't perfectly equal across all franchises. Modi's argument is that this number could have been Rs 120 crore higher per team if the home-away format had been maintained.
According to Inside Sport, broadcasters were promised an increase in total matches — from 74, rising to 84 and eventually 94 — over the 2023–27 cycle. That hasn't happened yet. Inside Sport India If Modi's claims are accurate, the broadcasters aren't the only ones who didn't get what they were promised — the franchises didn't either. It's a contractual issue that hasn't been resolved publicly, and it's the core of what Modi is calling out.
The Rs 2,400 crore figure isn't a vague estimate — it comes directly from the per-match media rights rate and the number of missing fixtures. Whether that gap gets closed depends on BCCI's willingness to restructure the schedule. For now, it's the best IPL revenue model argument anyone has publicly made — and it came from the man who built the league in the first place.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *