The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) -sponsored event saw the eight teams in the fray attracting handsome amounts. The bid process – that saw 22 bidders staking claim for the eight franchises – landed the organisers, the KSCA and the Fortune Group, a whopping Rs 35 crore. However, the final number of bidders was reduced to 21 as SVK Minerals was disqualified on technical grounds during scrutiny.
The hottest bid was for Bangalore Urbans. Brigade Enterprises Limited, a City-based construction major, bagged the rights for the team for five years at Rs 7.20 crore. “The response was tremendous for KPL. This was actually more than what we expected with good groups coming forward to claim the teams,” KSCA President Srikantadatta Wadiyar told reporters.
The second highest bid was for Bangalore Urbans (Tumkur region) with Melmont Constructions Private Limited pocketing the rights for Rs 5.55 crore. Their closest rival was Vivid Creations, who managed to acquire Gulbarga team for Rs 3.5 crore along with MLA from KR Puram Nandeesh Reddy. There was close bidding for mofussil teams, and KSCA Secretary Brijesh Patel hoped the enthusiasm will sustain helping to develop cricket in those areas. “It is a good sign to see some strong bids coming for teams from mofussil areas. Hopefully, this will help strengthen cricketing infrastructure in those regions,” Patel said.
Among the mofussil teams, Mangalore received the highest quotation of Rs 4.23 crore from Fizza Developers owned by Moinuddin Bawa. Other mofussil winning bids were: Belgaum (Subash Enterprises: Rs 3.81 crore), Shimoga (Jayaprakash Hegde: Rs 3.25 crore), and Hubli/Dharwad (Shamanur Shivashankarappa: Rs 3.77 crore).
The Reddy brothers of Bellary, ministers in the Yeddyurappa cabinet, and other film stars like Sudeep, Ramya and Rakshitha, who were expected to participate in the bidding, did not turn up. Patel added that four matches will be played in Mysore, as requested by the bidders, but they will be day matches played on weekends, in an effort to attract more crowd as well as to give more popularity to the event.
Sirish Auto clinched the Mysore franchise for Rs 3.25 crore outbidding cinestar Ambareesh, whose bid was close to Rs 3 crore. The successful bidders, however, will have to wait for another few hours before their bid getting finally ratified as there will one more round of scrutiny of the documents on Thursday.
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