IPL Cricket

The IPL Cricket League is a Twenty20 cricket competition created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The first season of the IPL Cricket League commenced on 18 April 2008.

Each team will play the other seven teams home and away, the top four teams at the end of the group stages will proceed through to the semi finals.

On 15 January 2008 it was announced that a consortium consisting of India's Sony Television network and Singapore-based World Sport Group secured the global broadcasting rights of the IPL Cricket League. The record deal has a duration of ten years at a cost of US$1.026 billion. As part of the deal, the consortium will pay the BCCI US$918 million for the television broadcast rights and US$108 million for the promotion of the tournament.

20% of these proceeds would go to IPL, 8% as prize money and 72% would be distributed to the franchisees. The money would be distributed in these proportions until 2012 after which the share of IPL would go up.

The BCCI had found itself in the middle of many conflicts with various cricket boards around the world as a result of the IPL. The main point of contention was that signed players should always be available to their country for international tours, even if it overlaps with the IPL Cricket League season.

To address this, the BCCI officially requested that the ICC institute a time period in the International Tours Program solely for the IPL Cricket League season. This request was not granted at a subsequent meeting held by the ICC.