Cuttack Among 6 shortlisted cities by BCCI for new franchises in IPL 2022

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has shortlisted six new cities to host two fresh franchises of IPL (Indian Premier League) 2022.

The new cities which are shortlisted to host new IPL teams are Guwahati, Ranchi, Cuttack (all East), Ahmedabad (West), Lucknow (Central Zone) and Dharmasala (North) for sale.

Even though the dates are unknown, the auction of the teams is expected to be held in next month. The base price for the new teams is fixed at Rs 2000 crore.

According to the latest reports, the BCCI is looking forward to expand the teams for the upcoming edition of IPL.

The BCCI aims to include two new teams from the Hindi speaking region to make the tournament more widespread in the country. The BCCI has already invited tenders for new teams who will participate in the tournament from 2022.

According to BCCI, the intake of sports in Hindi speaking regions of India is much more as compared to other regions of the country. Recently, Sony Pictures Network which hosts the England vs India test series brought forward an important finding. The Sony Ten 3, the Hindi language channel of the network has 50.7 per cent viewership, which is the highest among its sister channels. The Sony Six (English) had 10.6 per cent viewership while Sony Ten 4 (Tamil and Telugu) has 0.4 per cent viewership.

Currently, the Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings are the teams that represent the North Zone while Rajasthan Royals represents central zone. The teams from east and west zones are Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians.

Bulks of the IPL teams are from South India. Chennai Super Kings, Royals Challengers Bangalore, and Sunrisers Hyderabad are teams from southern part of India.