Lalit Modi Criticizes BCCI IPL Format, Claims 2,400 Crore Loss

Lalit Modi, the founding chairman of the Indian Premier League, has criticized the Board of Control for Cricket in India for forgoing a full home-and-away format in the tournament, claiming it results in a loss of approximately 2,400 crore rupees in annual revenue from media rights.

In interviews conducted during the ongoing IPL 2026 season, Modi argued that the league's expansion to 10 teams in 2022 should have led to 94 matches per season under a traditional structure, where each team plays every other twice in the league stage, followed by playoffs. Instead, the current setup features only 74 matches, including 70 in the league phase and four in the playoffs, due to scheduling adjustments that group teams and limit some matchups. This reduction of 20 games, he said, deprives the league of significant earnings at the prevailing rate of about 118 crore rupees per match.

Under the IPL's revenue-sharing model, half of media rights income goes to the BCCI and the other half to the franchises. Modi calculated that the missing matches would generate an additional 1,200 crore rupees for the 10 teams, or 120 crore rupees each, potentially boosting franchise valuations further. Recent...