Rajasthan Royals: The $67 million IPL shadow that became a $1.63 billion empire
In January 2008, someone, or several people, made one of the most shrewd, questionable investments in the history of sports. For $67 million, he acquired the rights to a cricket franchise in Rajasthan, a desert state with neither a great cricketing tradition, no glamorous city center nor any obvious commercial appeal. It was the cheapest of the eight original IPL franchises. No one else wanted it at that price.
After eighteen years, The same franchise was sold for 1.63 billion US dollars. This is a return of more than 2,300%. But the story of how this money was made and, more importantly, who it was made for and how the ownership was structured, is one of the most complex, scandal-filled, legally disputed stories in cricket history.
This is the complete story of Rajasthan Royals.
hazy beginning
In January 2008, the BCCI auctioned eight brand new IPL franchises to the highest bidder. Mumbai went for $111 million. Chennai received $91 million. Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Punjab captured the premium. The bidding rooms were buzzing with Bollywood money, industrial dynasties and a feeling that Indian cricket was becoming something else entirely.
And then there was Rajasthan.
The winning bid came in at $67 million, the market’s lowest level. The winning entity was Emerging Media, a subsidiary of UK-based technology group Blenheim Chalcot, led by British-Indian entrepreneur Manoj Badale.
maze in the desert
Right from the beginning, there was nothing clear about the ownership of Rajasthan Royals. The franchise agreement was not signed by Emerging Media.
The official franchise agreement with the BCCI was signed by Jaipur IPL Cricket Private Limited on 14 April, almost three months after the auction. This unit was incorporated after winning the auction.
At that precise moment, there were only two names listed in JICPL’s share register: Ranjit Barthakur and Fraser Castellino, each holding 5,000 shares. Immediately after signing, the shares jumped: Castellino transferred his shares by October 2008, Barthakur by January 2009. The real power resided in EM Sporting Holdings Limited, a Mauritius-based vehicle designed for opacity.
This is where the plot turned into a maze. EM Sporting had several partners. Tresco International Limited, controlled by Lalit Modi’s brother-in-law Suresh Chellaram, held 44.2% stake, making it the largest shareholder. Badale’s stake in Emerging Media IPL Limited was 32.4%. Blue Water Estates, linked to Lachlan Murdoch (son of media mogul Rupert), took 11.7%. Complementing this, Cookie Investments linked to Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra was also at 11.7%. On paper, Badale was the public face, a credible tech investor with a cricket academy in his past. In reality, Modi’s family was the largest, giving rise to whispers of a conflict: the IPL commissioner allegedly included his relatives through the backdoor in the franchise he oversaw.
Modi personally designed the tournament, conducted the auction and recruited franchise owners. Investigators later alleged that he also ensured that his family had a majority stake in one of the eight teams he oversaw. Rajasthan Royals did not fall cheap just like that. He was controversial from day one.
Test
When the Foreign Investment Promotion Board tried to investigate the ownership in 2009, it asked a question that no one could clearly answer: How did Badale come up with a $5 million earnest money deposit on behalf of a company that did not yet exist? When the BCCI investigated further in 2010 and discovered shareholders whose names allegedly did not appear anywhere in the franchise’s disclosed ownership, they expelled the team entirely. The Rajasthan High Court ensured restitution, but the damage was done. Rajasthan Royals were now a franchise with something to hide.
But something like magic happened on the field.
warne’s team
When Shane Warne took over the captaincy of Rajasthan in 2008, he was 38 years old. He had retired from international cricket. He was a veteran player playing in the new format with a team of budget buyers and unknowns. Shane Watson, Sohail Tanvir, Yusuf Pathan. The royals had no stars, no budget, no glamour.
He won the tournament. They, almost instantly, became cricket’s great romantic story: the cheapest team, the forgotten franchise, lifting the trophy.
Warne’s association with the franchise will last longer than captaincy. When the team rebuilt after its worst years in 2018, he returned as a stakeholder, and received equity in recognition of everything he had done for the club.
scams
The shadow of Chellaram-Modi never completely lifted, but new disasters added to it. In 2013, three Rajasthan Royals players – Sreesanth, Ankit Chavan and Ajit Chandila – were arrested by Delhi Police on spot-fixing charges.
The same year, the Income Tax Department launched a formal anonymous investigation into the franchise’s founder ownership structure, sending a detailed questionnaire to the BCCI about the Modi-Chellaram nexus and the post-auction shell company maze.
Then, in 2015, the Supreme Court-appointed Mudgal Committee found co-owner Raj Kundra, husband of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, guilty of illegal betting, having bought the franchise when it doubled in value in its first year.
BCCI suspended the Royals. For 2016 and 2017, there was no Rajasthan Royals in the IPL.
Franchises have been expelled, investigated, fixed, staked and banned. And yet the underlying asset continued to appreciate. Perhaps this is the moral of the IPL business story: scams are temporary, valuations are permanent.
Reconstruction
The Royals returned in 2018 with a physically cleaner structure. The opacity was gone; Shetty and Kundra left; Badale’s emerging media was now more clearly in control. The team was re-imagined around young Indian talent. Sanju Samson, finally, as the captain; Yashasvi Jaiswal rose through the ranks.
Warne’s magic never recovered. Base partially shifted to Assam. The captaincy was handed over to Riyan Parag, who surprisingly survived the tumultuous journey.
sales
By 2025, with the IPL’s media rights and global profile at historic highs, Badale and existing investors decided it was time to exit. An investment bank that had managed the sale of Chelsea FC and advised Manchester United ran the process.
A consortium led by Kal Somani, an Arizona-based technology entrepreneur who had quietly held a minority stake in the franchise for years, ultimately won the bid at a reported valuation of $1.63 billion. The change in ownership is expected to take place after the conclusion of the IPL 2026 season.
The consortium supporting the acquisition includes two globally recognized sports owners: Rob Walton of the Walmart family and Sheila Ford Hamp of the Ford motor dynasty.
accounting book
The figures are surprising. A $67 million investment made in 2008 through a shell company through a Mauritius holding entity, in which the brother-in-law of an IPL commissioner was the majority beneficial owner, yielded a return of $1.63 billion after eighteen years. This is what IPL became.
Money flows in many directions. Badale, which consolidated 65% ownership before the sale, walked away with the largest individual windfall. Both Redbird Capital and Lachlan Murdoch significantly increased their returns. The Chellaram family, which held a 44.2% stake during the franchise’s most controversial years, may have collected a substantial sum for its initial investment, although the exact figures, appropriately, remain opaque.
And Lalit Modi? The Income Tax Benami investigation never resulted in a criminal conviction. The questions it raised – why the shell company, why incorporation after the auction, why the brother-in-law majority – were never conclusively answered.
What Rajasthan Royals ultimately represents is not just the story of a franchise, but an IPL story: the story of an organization that started out in question, survived a scandal on a scale that would have destroyed a smaller brand, and emerged at a valuation 24 times its founding price.
The desert kingdom which no one wanted became such a prosperous kingdom.
– ends
