IPL 2021: Franchises to incur loss of INR 25 crore as BCCI denies presence of fans in stadiums

On Sunday, March 7, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the schedule for the much-awaited 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) that will run from April 9 to May 30 across six venues namely Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata.

Though the league returns to India, the spectators won’t be allowed in the stadiums as the authorities don’t want to take any risk in the wake of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The IPL Governing Council Chairman Brijesh Patel revealed that the fans won’t be allowed even for a single match and the official announcement regarding the same will be made soon. Further, Patel reckoned that BCCI is open to replace any venue if any unforeseen circumstances arise.

“Yes, I can confirm that there will be no spectators allowed for this season. Not for a single match. We will have a Governing Council meeting in the next two days to ratify these decisions. The decision to take Mumbai as a venue was difficult. But we believe things will improve. But we are keeping our options open (to opt for a replacement venue in case the situation goes out of hand,” Brijesh Patel told Inside Sport in an exclusive interview on Sunday evening.

IPL Franchises not happy with neutral venues

However, the empty stadiums have emerged as a cause of worry for the IPL franchises as they are expected to incur a huge loss. The franchise owners were expecting to make up for the losses incurred last year but not having fans in the stadium will not serve their purpose. Also, many teams feel that this decision may affect their fan-following.

“Yes, after last year’s loss, we are a bit worried about this year’s revenue loss as well. I would say the loss could be around Rs 25 crore. But more than that we are going to lose our fans. That’s our biggest concern,” CSK CEO Kashi Viswanathan told InsideSport.co on Monday.

Apart from the ticket-revenue, another major problem for the franchises is the teams not playing at their home grounds. To eliminate any kind of biasness, BCCI has decided that all the matches will be played at neutral venues with no team playing at their home grounds. All teams will play at 4 out of 6 venues during the league stage.

The decision by the Indian board came as a shocker as franchises feel that this will affect their brand associations as the brands who wish to lure the local market will no longer be interested in associating with the tournament or teams.