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In December, Goenka’s firm New Rising won the Pune franchise of the IPL with a bid of minus Rs 16 crore in a reverse bidding process. In this model, the bidders who put in the lowest amount — which is agreeing to accept the lowest share of IPL’s central pool revenue — wins the bid. The base price for the reverse bid was set at Rs 40 crore. The second new team — Rajkot— went to handset maker Intex.
Goenka, who is chairman of the RPSanjiv Goenka Group, says he has been enjoying his tryst with sports and there are many lessons he has learnt from the two seasons of the Indian Super League football tournament that he is part of as the co-owner of the team Atlético de Kolkata. His ISL team, he said, has not broken even so far but ‘I can see the path to profitability.’
Going forward, his company plans to foray into other sports as well or expand into more activities in the sports they are in already. "Hypothetically it could be buying a football club overseas. We could look at it," he says. On a more immediate basis, the company is planning to get into football at the grassroot level with a football academy in Kolkata on a land that it already owns.
The Pune IPL team has been named Rising Pune Supergiants and its captain is Indian skipper MS Dhoni, who unveiled the team’s official jersey recently. Rising Pune Supergiants has a balanced side with players like Ajinkya Rahane, Faf Du Plessis, Steve Smith, Irfan Pathan, Albie Morkel, Ravichandran Ashwin, among others. Goenka said lot of sponsors have approached them, but did not confirm if the team has closed any deals. "We are close to signing one brand," he added.
Unlike other IPL teams, the two new franchises — Pune and Rajkot — are only for two years and will not be paid any money by the Board of Control for Cricket in India on a yearly basis. That makes the task of breaking even more difficult for these two teams. The team has so far spentRs 60 crore on the auction from their total purse of Rs 66 crore. The company’s inhouse brands —S pencers, CESC and others — will also bid alongside other brands to sponsor the Pune IPL team. "In house brands will bid as any other brand. Whether they will get time will tell," he says.
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