By IANS,
New Delhi : Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi feels the global economic slowdown won’t impact the second edition of the Twenty20 league next year.
In fact, he says IPL will continue to make profits.
“The whole world is going through a depression. And I feel that cricket match is a place where people will come to relax. So I think the economic crisis will have no impact on the IPL,” he said on the sidelines of the Twenty20 Champions League Awards night.
The inaugural edition of the IPL was immensely successful with media rights being sold to Sony and World Sports Group (WSG) for a whopping $918 million.
But with the global meltdown, some of the IPL franchise owners like Deccan Chronicle Holdings are facing the crunch, so much so that they have put their team Deccan Chargers on sale.
Modi also said they have mutually called off the $4.5 million dollar sponsorship deal with Pepsi to help the franchises exploit the opportunity.
“Last time we had some problems during the matches. People were not allowed to carry water bottles inside the stadium. Even after the IPL the deal was valued at $ 8 million. But we have mutually called off the deal to help the owners exploit the deal,” he said.