Women’s T20 League (WIPL) Five Franchises To Be Revealed on January 25

BCCI is all set to reveal the franchise’s names for the inaugural Women’s T20 League (WIPL) in a few weeks’ time on the 25th of January 2023. They had earlier invited all interested business parties to participate in the franchise rights bidding process through a tender. All interested parties have already submitted bids to the BCCI in sealed envelopes which will be opened on the announced date. Due to a huge interest in WIPL team rights, many big business entities signed up very quickly and submitted their bids. 

JUST IN:

The BCCI is likely to announce the names of the 5 franchises that will contest the inaugural Women's Indian Premier League (WIPL), and the cities they will operate from, on January 25.#CricketTwitter #IPL2023

— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) January 12, 2023

Bidding Available For Ten Cities

Women’s T20 League (WIPL) will have five franchises but the tender issued by the BCCI shows that have given an option to all franchises to pick their teams from ten different cities of India along with their home grounds. Picking a city for a franchise in Indian Premier League is an important decision in further grooming the young talent in that state along with having great city support from passionate cricket fans. The bids are available for the below mentioned cities. 

• Mumbai (Wankhede / DY Patil / Brabourne Stadiums)
• Delhi (Arun Jaitley stadium, 55,000)
• Ahmedabad (Narendra Modi stadium, capacity 112,560)
• Kolkata (Eden Gardens, 65,000)
• Chennai (MA Chidambaram stadium, 50,000)
• Bangalore (M Chinnaswamy stadium, 42,000)
• Lucknow (AB Vajpayee Ekana cricket stadium, 48,800)
• Dharamsala (HPCA stadium, 20,900)
• Guwahati (Barsapara Stadium, 38,650)
• Indore (Holkar stadium, 26,900)

The same teams who already own franchises in the Men’s IPL are expected to get the rights for the Women’s IPL as well as the BCCI secretary Jay Shah already indicated they might give some weightage to the business entities who already own an IPL team for more than a decade. 

It is to keep note that in BCCI general meeting, the original plan was to either pick a city from six different cricket zones across India or schedule the tournament on 6 different venues across India without a specific home ground but it seems like now they are going to adapt the same home and away match procedure as we have seen in the Men’s IPL. 

Format For Women’s T20 League (WIPL)

As per the official tender document for Women’s IPL (WIPL), it has now been confirmed that in the first three editions (2023-2025) of the tournament, there will be 22 matches being played with each team playing twice against each other while the table toppers of the group stage will head straight to the final while the 2nd & 3rd team on the point table will play an eliminator to reach the big final. 

The 4th year can see matches extended from 22 to 34 matches with the addition of another team in the Women’s T20 League (WIPL) along with the structure of the playoffs. BCCI will reveal more information regarding the WIPL 2026 once we get close to the fourth season. 

The decision of rewarding the table toppers a direct entry to the Final is an exciting reward for the best-performing team in the Women’s IPL and it also makes the tournament competitive and not make silly if they opted to play the play-offs with four teams going through from the group stage which have a total of five participating teams. 

Highest Bid Awarding Process

Cricket Board has confirmed to all interested parties to submit their franchise bids for the 10 years contract and no minimum base price has been set by the BCCI as they gave the business entities the free hand to decide its worth. Bidders are also given the option to bid for more than one city/franchise but they will get the rights for only one IPL team if they became successful.

All ten stadiums mentioned above will be given to the franchises as per the highest offer hierarchy meaning the stadium with the highest bid will be awarded first and then the next stadium with 2nd highest to be awarded and so on. 

Revenue Sharing Process

The sealed bids for WIPL media rights for five year term period will be opened by BCCI on January 16, 2023, which is expected to be a very lucrative deal just like the Men’s IPL. The income from Media rights is an important part of the grand success of the Indian Premier League and the same approach and model to be adopted in the Women’s T20 League (WIPL) as well. 

For the first five years, BCCI will pay 80% of the Central Team Licensing Income every year to franchises and then it will be reduced to 60% for the next five-year period and after that 50% income will be shared. It is great to see long planning has been officially announced by the board to show how they intend to make Women’s IPL a grand success.