Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited was the highest bidder in all the cities paying $111.9m for the Mumbai team. Liquor baron Vijay Mallya's UB group - which already owns Formula One team Force India - came a close second, eventually settling for Bangalore at $111.6m.
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, actress Juhi Chawla and her husband Jai Mehta bid $75.09m for the Kolkata team. Preity Zinta along with Ness Wadia, Karan Paul and Dabur's Mohit Burman acquired Yuvraj Singh's Mohali team for $76m.
Other winners were India Cements (Chennai, $91m), infrastructure group GMR (Delhi, $84m), media company Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad, $107m), and a consortium led by UK-based company Emerging Media (Jaipur, $67m).
Each successful bidder will pay 10 per cent of the bid price to the board every year.
Lalit Modi, Vice President of the Indian Cricket Board and chairman of the IPL, said “To date we have made $1.749 billion. We are looking to build on it going forward”.
Franchise owners will be able to bid for players in the coming weeks, with more than 70 Indians available as well as others from Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa.
