By Nick Harris 24 April 2010 Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood star and co-owner of the Rajasthan Royals IPL team, has said today that Lalit Modi, the under-fire IPL commissioner, “made” the IPL, “made India proud” and “made cricket a feasible and viewed sport worldwide”. Modi is under pressure amid allegations of financial impropriety and hidden […]

By Nick Harris 22 April 2010 The Minister for Sport, Gerry Sutcliffe, and his counterparts in the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party, Don Foster and Hugh Robertson, have revealed key ideological differences in their approach to the governance and organisation of sport in Britain in an exclusive series of interviews for sportingintelligence, but they […]

By Nick Harris 2 April 2010 Average pay across America’s NFL differs less between its richest and poorest teams than in any other major sports league in the world, according to sportingintelligence’s Annual Review of Global Sports Salaries, published today. The study calculates pay at more than 200 teams across 10 leagues including in the […]

By Nick Harris 28 March 2010 The New York Yankees are the best-paid team in global sport measured by average first-team wages, ahead of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea and basketball’s Dallas Mavericks, according to the inaugural Annual Review of Global Sports Salaries (ARGSS), to be published this week by sportingintelligence. The average first-team pay at […]

22 March 2010 The delayed auction of two new franchises for the Indian Premier League went ahead yesterday and confounded its critics by raising $703m (£469m) from the sale of franchises to billionaire Subrata Roy (who bought the Pune franchise for $370m) and Rendezvous Sports World (Kochi, $333m). Reports in The Times, The Indian Express […]

By Nick Harris 17 March 2010 The Indian Premier League’s third season has begun with promising viewing figures, rising year-on-year by an eye-catching 1,000 per cent in Britain as well as by 43 per cent in the key domestic market of India. Closer examination of the numbers reveals the British figures in absolute terms are […]

By Nick Harris 8 March 2010 EXCLUSIVE The Indian Premier League’s bungled auction yesterday of two new franchises, on sale for at least $225m each (£149m), was not the total failure it initially appeared, sportingintelligence can reveal, with the IPL’s chairman, Lalit Modi, telling this website today that the IPL received three “valid” bids for […]

By Nick Harris 17 February 2010 The Indian government today reacted bullishly to terrorist threats against the forthcoming hockey World Cup, the 2010 IPL season and the Commonwealth Games by promising to provide “full protection” to every player, coach and official involved. In addition, the Delhi police have claimed that “foolproof” security arrangements are in […]

By Nick Harris 16 February 2010 The identity of the Premier League football club that has expressed an interest in buying an Indian Premier League cricket franchise will be revealed when the tender process opens next month according to a BBC report, although the IPL’s commissioner, Lalit Modi, has told sportingintelligence by email this afternoon […]

8 February 2010 The Rajasthan Royals IPL franchise is to establish partnerships with other cricket teams around the world to start what is being marketed as “the world’s first global sporting franchise”. The BBC reports on the development, which centres on Twenty20 cricket and was launched at Lord’s today, in this article. Existing sides in […]