<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAt the time, it was a highly contentious move in a sport that cherished tradition. But it brought legions of new Indian fans to cricket. Well-known figures like Mr. Ambani and the Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan began to buy franchises.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ambani owns the league’s most valuable team, the Mumbai Indians, which has won five titles and is valued at $ 1.3 billion. Mr. Khan, the film actress Juhi Chawla and the industrialist Jay Mehta own the Kolkata Knight Riders, a franchise worth roughly $ 1.1 billion.<\/p>\n
The bids for broadcast rights were high despite data showing that television viewership in the first five weeks of this year’s season, which began in late March, was down by about 30 percent from last year, according to Broadcast Audience Research Council India, an industry body .<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a potential for television audiences to shrink from here on,\u201d said Karan Taurani, a media analyst at Elara Capital in Mumbai. However, he said he expected digital viewership to grow at least 15 percent.<\/p>\n
Pradeep Magazine, a longtime sports editor and a historian of cricket, said the league had made the Indian cricket board one of the richest sports regulatory bodies in the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Even as the league’s broadcasting rights have become a rich source of revenue for the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the board has been dogged by scandal. Its founder, Lalit Modi, fled the country after being dismissed in 2010 over financial irregularities. In 2013, an investigation into illegal betting resulted in two teams being suspended from play for two seasons.<\/p>\n
But scandal has not hurt the league’s popularity. In recent years, broadcast subscriptions have jumped by millions of new viewers, pulling in huge advertising revenue. Disney-owned Star India paid $ 2.09 billion for television and digital broadcasting rights in a five-year deal that ended this season.<\/p>\n
Tariq Panja contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n