BCCI plans to start wonmen’s IPL from 2023

India’s cricket board is playing to start the women’s Indian Premier League (IPL) from next year onward.

“It has to be approved by the (annual general meeting),” Sourav Ganguly, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) told reporters on Friday. “We plan to start it by next year hopefully.”

The process to launch the women’s version of the IPL has “begun,” according to IPL chairman Brijesh Patel, and it might be a five- or six-team competition.

Since 2018, the BCCI has hosted a women’s T20 challenge event, and Patel said four matches involving three teams will take place around the men’s playoffs this year.

The 15th edition of the men’s IPL kicks off in Mumbai on Saturday, with Chennai Super Kings hosting Kolkata Knight Riders.

The IPL governing council meeting in Mumbai on Friday made key decisions, including a plan to float the media rights tender for the men’s edition for the next five years.

Bids are expected to be invited separately for digital, TV and rest of the world rights in a breakaway from the previous term, when Star India paid $2.55 billion for five years of TV and digital rights up to 2022.

This time the collective base price from various categories has been kept at around $4 billion, a senior official told BCCI on condition of anonymity.

The money-spinning league — which expanded to 10 teams to include Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans and 74 matches this year — is a huge revenue earner for the BCCI.

Pre-pandemic, the IPL was estimated to have generated more than $11 billion for the Indian economy each year.