They say you lose some to gain some, and this saying perfectly correlates with Vijay Mallya’s UB Group. In 2008, the conglomerate bid for seven out of 11 cities on offer to create a franchise in the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Lalit Modi revealed these details in a bombshell post on X on March 26 (Thursday).
In his X post, the former IPL commissioner and, shared a one-page document, he claimed was the bid sheet from the original auction held on January 24, 2008, to sell the eight franchises that would kickstart the IPL.
How did Mallya’s UB Group lose the race to acquire the Mumbai franchise?
The document shows that Mallya bid for seven out of 11 cities. He did not bid for Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and Cuttack. Three of those cities did not become IPL teams back then.
However, they made their biggest bids for Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi, each priced at $111.6 million. But Reliance beat them for Mumbai by a margin of just $300,000, roughly Rs 1.2 crore at the time. Reliance bid $111.9 million for Mumbai and secured the franchise.
How did Vijay Mallya’s UB Group get the Bengaluru franchise in IPL?
Losing the race for Mumbai also meant they remained the highest bidders for both the Delhi and Bengaluru franchises. Ultimately, they decided to acquire Bengaluru, given Mallya’s own connection with the city.
How the failed Mumbai bid became a $1.78 billion franchise?
Though Mallya’s UB Group no longer owns the Bengaluru franchise now synonymous with RCB, their initial loss to acquire Mumbai was the breeding ground for the rise of the “Lion of Bengaluru.”
Diageo India acquired a majority stake (initially 54.8%) in United Spirits Limited (USL) between 2012 and 2014. With USL came the subsidiary Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited, which owned RCB. Since then, they built the RCB brand and then also bought the Women’s Premier League (WPL) franchise for that city.
After nearly 12 years of careful management, they finally sold the “golden goose” for $1.78 billion (approx. Rs 16,660 crore).
A consortium led by the Aditya Birla Group, The Times of India Group, Blackstone, and Bolt Ventures (led by US sports tycoon David Blitzer) has now acquired 100 per cent stakes in RCB, pending ratification from the BCCI and Competition Commission of India (CCI).
That’s how the $300,000—or simply Rs 1.2 crore—”miss” by Mallya’s UB Group led to the foundation of a franchise worth $1.78 billion, the biggest sports entity in the entire country by valuation.