The IPL, which started in 2008, is currently not only the most profitable cricket event worldwide, but also one of the most valuable properties in the world of sports. That is why the price now paid for RCB is almost double the price charged by BCCI for the new and last IPL team ‘Lucknow Supergiants’ in 2021.

In this entire discussion, a very interesting question comes up that how was the RCB team formed, how and at what price was it purchased from BCCI? It is certain that on paper, no matter who owns Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) now or in the future, this team will always be known as ‘Vijay Mallya’s team’. ‘Royal Challengers’ was the name of a product of his company. Now, even if he is not with this franchise, RCB has become such a big brand that even the new owners are not changing it and this team will remain RCB.

Now let us tell you something which you will be surprised to know. When BCCI started selling franchise rights for the IPL in 2008, the first choice of Vijay Mallya’s ‘United Breweries Group’ was not to build a team in Bengaluru (the current name of this city). In the offer to form a team of 11 cities, this group bid for 7 cities which included Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi respectively. The offer for these three cities was $111.6 million. The 4 cities left out were Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Cuttack. Of these, only Jaipur’s team was formed later, which is proof that the other three cities remained behind in terms of everyone’s choice.

Mumbai franchise was the first choice of Vijay Mallya. When the auction was held on January 24, 2008 to form 8 teams of IPL and the bid envelopes were opened, Mallya lost to Reliance for Mumbai. Surprisingly, their bid was only $0.3 million (about Rs 1.2 crore at that time) less than Reliance’s offer. Then it seemed that what happened with Sanjeev Kumar’s company in the tender auction in the Hindi film ‘Trishul’, the same happened with Vijay Mallya’s company here. Reliance took the Mumbai franchise with a bid of $111.9 million.

Now Vijay Mallya’s UB Group was at the forefront in the race for franchises in Bengaluru and Delhi. They could have formed only one team and Vijay Mallya chose ‘his’ city Bengaluru. Thus, the franchise which was initially acquired from BCCI at a price of $111.6 million, has now been sold for $1.78 billion.

United Spirits Limited (USL) started selling stakes around 2012 and by 2014, Diageo India had bought a large stake and thus acquired the subsidiary company Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited. On paper he was the owner of the RCB team. Since then, RCB’s brand value has grown tremendously, which has further increased with the addition of the WPL franchise for the same city.

Now this entire package has been sold for 1.78 billion dollars (about Rs 16,660 crore). According to the current valuation, it is the largest sports company in India. Even though the value of the Mumbai franchise has been estimated at $2.4 billion, this value has not yet been assessed in the market.

In June 2025, when RCB won its first title, it was estimated that the team’s brand value would increase to more than $140 million. One thing that everyone often ignores while talking about RCB
They are not just a cricket team, they are a brand, a lifestyle. Unlike RCB and other teams that don’t come on the ground for just two months and then disappear, they remain in the news all year long: jerseys, merchandise, RCB Bar & Café, RCB Innovation Lab to promote sports tech in India and fitness content initiatives like ‘Hustle by RCB’ all keep fans engaged with the team.

This is why the bid of $1.78 billion to buy RCB was not a surprise to anyone.