SunTV group wins the bid for new IPL team, picks Hyderabad franchise for Rs85 crore per year.
The Chennai-based Sun Group, which is the promoter of Sun TV and domestic airline SpiceJet, will pay Rs. 850 crore for rights on the team for 10 years. The Sun Group is led by Kalanidhi Maran, one of India's powerful figures in the media industry and the grand nephew of DMK leader M Karunanidhi
The Indian cricket board had invited bids for 12 cities: Ahmedabad, Cuttack, Dharamsala, Indore, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Kochi, Nagpur, Noida, Rajkot, Ranchi and Visakhapatnam. The BCCI lowered it's reserve price for a new franchise to just Rs. 60 cr--almost half of what it set during 2010 when Pune and Kochi came into existence.