Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) is a franchise cricket team in IPL based out of Chennai and founded in 2008. India Cements acquired rights of franchise for ten years. Former BCCI President N Srinivasan is the owner of this Chennai-based IPL franchise.
The MS Dhoni-led franchise has won four IPL trophies (2010, 2011, 2018 & 2021) and two CL T20 trophies (2010 & 2014). In January 2022, CSK became India's first Unicorn sports enterprise. CSK has had a great legacy as the team is led by captain MS Dhoni.
Despite their legacy, CSK got a two-year ban in the year 2016 & 2017 due to the involvement of their management in the 2013 betting case.
It is to be noted that CSK earns revenue through media rights, sponsorships, stadium ticket sales, merchandise sales (T-shirts), and prize money they get from the cash-rich league. Here in this article, we will look into the details of the above-mentioned things.
1. Media Rights
BCCI guarantees shares of 40-50% of the media rights revenue to all the IPL franchises. Overall, the media rights of the IPL 2023-27 cycle, have been sold for a whopping price of INR 48,390 Crore in total.
The media rights of IPL have seen significant growth as the price for a five-year cycle from the 2017-22 period was only one-third of its current value (INR 16,347 Crore).
As per sources, CSK got a revenue of INR 201.65 Crore in 2022 from media rights only.
Looking at the above calculations, CSK would get a revenue share of more than INR 400 Crore from media rights alone in the ongoing 16th edition of IPL.
2. Sponsorships
Sponsorship revenue almost forms 20-30% of the total revenue for a team. The brands getting associated will either come under IPL sponsors (or) for IPL franchises alone.
BCCI receives money from IPL sponsors and distributes 40 to 50% of them to all IPL franchises. TATA has been the sponsor of IPL 2023. Dream 11, Saudi tourism authority, CRED, Upstox, Rupay, and Herbalife are official partners of ongoing edition of the tournament.
Aramco is the official orange and purple cap partner, whereas PayTM is the official umpire partner, and CEAT is the official strategic time-out partner of the tournament.
CSK's principal sponsors include TVS Eurogrip, India Cements, and Gulf Oil. India Cements has been CSK's jersey sponsor since the inception in 2008.
CSK partners include SNJ 1000, British Empire, Reliance Jio, Astral Pipes, Nippon Paint, Vision 11, Fan Craze, ICICI Bank, Coca-Cola, Garuda Aerospace Private Ltd, and Play R.
As per the reports, CSK has generated a revenue of INR 650 million through sponsorship alone last year.
3. Stadium ticket sales
As per reports, it's believed that through sales of tickets, the IPL franchises have generated 15 per cent of its total revenue overall. Ticket costs for a stadium are generally determined by team owners and also depend on other factors like excitement around the event, seating capacity, etc.
MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai can accommodate 50,000 spectators. The range of ticket pricing has been from INR 1,500 to INR 3,000.
Some percentage of the amount from ticket sales goes to BCCI and sponsors also. Many tickets aren't available for the general public as they go sold to corporate companies in bulk.
4. Merchandise sales
Merchandise sales includes selling team jersey, shoes, caps, and other athletic equipment of a particular franchise.
Sales of these products happen through the backing of business organizations and their sponsors. According to a research report, India's sports apparel market was USD28 billion in 2022 and will increase to USD40.6 billion in 2027.
5. Prize Money
Every team participating in an IPL edition will be winning prize money based on the standings in the points table.
Notably, this source of income has been minimal among the things mentioned so far. Last year IPL winning team got INR 20 Crore, and this year they have increased the prize money by 20-25 percent respectively.
