You want to know what makes CSK different? Ask the old man.
S. Ramdas was 103 years old in 2024. He fought for the British Army before India was free. Every evening he sits in his chair in Chennai and watches cricket. His son says he calls himself a “senior youth.”
The old man never misses a match. He knows every player from Dhoni to the newest kid. When someone asked if he would travel to Delhi to watch the team play, he said he would walk there if he had to.
This is not a marketing story. This is just an old man who found a reason to stay alive because a cricket team gives him something to look forward to. The franchise knows about him. They send him gifts sometimes. But mostly they just keep playing, which is all he really wants.
You cannot put this on a balance sheet. But it is why CSK is worth almost ten thousand crore rupees today.
The cement and the cricket ball
N. Srinivasan bought the Chennai franchise for ninety-one million dollars in 2008. People thought he was mad. Cricket was a sport, not a business. But Srinivasan saw something else. He ran India Cements. He knew about building things that last.
The early years were simple. The team made sixty to eighty crore rupees per year. They spent big on Dhoni and Matthew Hayden. But here is the thing. While other teams fired captains every season and changed plans every month, CSK kept the same people.
They treated players like they would treat managers in a cement plant. Give them security. Let them grow old with you.
By 2014 the cricket part had grown so big that India Cements spun it off into its own company. This meant CSK could raise money on its own. It could sell shares without selling cement. The move came just before the disaster. Good timing or good management? Depends who you ask.
Two years in the wilderness
In 2016 the Supreme Court banned CSK from the league for two years. A team official had been caught betting. The franchise said they knew nothing. The judges did not care.
For any other brand this would have been the end. Imagine Coke being told they cannot sell cola for two years. Imagine Apple being told they cannot sell phones. The brand should have died.
But CSK did something strange. They got bigger while they were away.
Fans did not leave. They travelled to Pune to watch Dhoni play for a different team. They carried banners saying they missed their yellow jerseys. The Facebook fan page grew from thirty thousand to three hundred thousand. The ban turned the team into a victim. People in Chennai felt the judges had punished the city, not just the team.
Srinivasan kept the staff employed. He ran charity events. He reminded everyone CSK was still alive, just sleeping. When the team came back in 2018 they won the trophy immediately. Old men cried in the stands. Young people who were teens when the team left were now old enough to buy tickets.
The brand value which had dropped to sixty-seven million dollars was climbing again. Today it is two hundred and thirty-five million.
Four ways they make money
CSK runs on four engines. Most teams rely on one or two. That is why CSK survives when others struggle.
First there is the central pool. The BCCI sells TV rights for forty-eight thousand crore rupees and shares half with the teams. CSK got nearly four hundred and eighty crore rupees from this last year alone. This money comes whether they win or lose. It is like a salary for just showing up. This safety net means they never panic.
Second there are sponsors. CSK makes about ninety-five crore rupees from companies like Etihad and Gulf Oil. These brands pay extra to be with CSK because of the Dhoni factor. He does not do controversies. He does not fight in the press. He just wins or loses quietly. For a company selling oil or plane tickets that reliability is worth gold.
Third there are the tickets. Chepauk stadium fills up every time. The fans there are different. They whistle instead of shouting. They know the game. Even when CSK plays badly the stadium looks full. Last year this brought in roughly one hundred crore rupees.
Fourth and smallest is merchandise and academies. They sell jerseys and caps. They run cricket schools in Dallas and Sydney now. This makes only a few crores today but it plants seeds for tomorrow.
The real numbers
Look at the balance sheet from FY24. Revenue jumped to six hundred and ninety-five crore rupees. Profit after tax was two hundred and one crore rupees. That is a profit margin that most software companies would envy. They have three hundred and thirty-six crore rupees in cash sitting in the bank. No loans to speak of.
Last year was bad on the field. They finished last. Ruturaj Gaikwad got injured. They missed the playoffs. So revenue dipped slightly to six hundred and seventy-three crore rupees. Profit fell to one hundred and forty-eight crore rupees.
But notice something. They still made a profit. Most teams lose money when they lose matches. CSK just makes less money. That is the difference between a business and a gamble.
Father and the son
Suresh Raina left the team bubble in 2020 during the COVID season. He said there was a family emergency. People thought Srinivasan would be angry. Raina was breaking a contract. He was letting the team down.
But the story that came out later was different. Raina said Srinivasan was like a father figure to him. A father can scold his son, he said. That does not mean the love is gone. Srinivasan had apparently been furious in private, but then he had understood.
The man who runs CSK is not a typical sports owner. He does not see players as employees. He sees them as family members who happen to hit cricket balls.
This is why players come back to CSK even when other teams offer more money. Shane Watson once said he wanted to repay the faith CSK showed in him and he did it by winning them 2018 final. Dwayne Bravo cried when he had to leave. Faf du Plessis still talks about the team like it is his home.
In a league where loyalty lasts one season, CSK has players who stay for ten years. That saves money on scouting. It saves money on training. It builds continuity that wins matches.
Whistle that became an anthem
In 2008 CSK released a song called Whistle Podu. It had a local beat called kuthu. Dhoni danced in the video even though he is from Ranchi not Chennai. People laughed at first. Then they started whistling along. Now it is not just a song. It is what fans do when the team walks onto the field.
The marketing team did not hire fancy consultants from Mumbai. They just used what was already there. The yellow colour represents the sun and the city. The whistle is what people do in Tamil movies when the hero arrives. They made the cricket team feel like a movie, and Dhoni was the hero.
In 2018 when political problems forced CSK to play a home game in Pune instead of Chennai, the team hired a special train. They called it the Whistle Podu Express. Almost thousand fans travelled overnight. They sang songs. They ate together.
By the time they reached Pune those fans were not just supporters. They were family. That is marketing you cannot buy with advertising budgets.
The money trick with dhoni
Here is a secret about how CSK stays rich. They have learned to use Dhoni like a financial instrument, not just a player.
This year the BCCI brought back a rule. If a player has not played international cricket for five years he counts as uncapped. He costs only four crore rupees to retain, not eighteen.
Dhoni has not played for India since 2019. So CSK kept him for four crores. That saved them fourteen crores in salary cap space. They used that money to buy Sanju Samson in a trade.
Think about that. They kept their biggest brand, their spiritual leader, and they saved money doing it. Other teams pay eighteen crores for young players who might be good. CSK pays four crores for a forty-three-year-old legend and uses the savings to build the future. That is accounting as art.
The global yellow machine
CSK is not just in Chennai anymore. They bought a team in South Africa called Joburg Super Kings. They bought a team in America called Texas Super Kings. These teams lose money right now. Joburg lost twenty-six crore rupees last year. Texas made twenty-two lakh rupees, which is nothing.
But that is not the point. The point is that when cricket becomes big in America, CSK will already be there. When South African cricket grows, CSK will own a piece of it. They are planting trees whose shade they will sit under ten years from now. It is long-term thinking in a world that thinks only until next Friday.
Unlisted gold mine
You cannot buy CSK shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange. But you can buy them in private markets. Rich people trade them over coffee and phone calls. The price has gone from one hundred and fifty rupees to three hundred and twenty rupees in recent trades. The whole company is worth nearly ten thousand crore rupees.
Analysts say it is undervalued. A new team like Gujarat Titans is valued higher even though they have only won one title. CSK has won five. CSK has the strongest brand. CSK has the most loyal fans.
But because they are old and not listed formally, they trade at a discount. Smart investors know this. They are buying now before the rest of the world figures it out.
What happens when dhoni stops
This is the question everyone asks. What happens when he retires? Will the fans stop coming? Will the sponsors leave? Will the yellow fade?
CSK is planning for it. They made Ruturaj Gaikwad captain last year to test him. They traded for Sanju Samson to prepare for the future. They are building a Hall of Fame with Raina and Hayden to remind people that the team is bigger than one man. They are turning from a cricket team into a lifestyle brand.
But the truth is nobody knows. Maybe the fans will stay because they have been coming for sixteen years. Maybe they will leave because there is no Dhoni. That is the risk every dynasty faces. The Romans fell. The British Empire fell. Maybe CSK will fall too.
But right now they are still standing. They are still making two hundred crore rupees profit. They are still filling Chepauk. They are still the team that old man Ramdas watches every night.
The last word
There is a word people use for CSK that you rarely hear in sports. Sustainable. Usually that word is for bamboo farms and solar power. But CSK has made cricket sustainable. They do not spend more than they earn. They do not throw away old players. They do not change their mind every season. They just show up, play cricket, treat people well, and collect the money.
In a league that is becoming more chaotic every year, with new teams and new rules and new scandals, CSK is the constant. They are the yellow line that does not move. They are proof that you can build something valuable without being cruel. You can make money without forgetting why you started.
When the whistle blows at Chepauk this year, whether Dhoni is keeping wickets or just sitting in the dugout, the fans will be there. The old man will be watching. The money will keep coming. And somewhere, N. Srinivasan will be smiling, knowing that a cement company built something that will outlast the cement.