{"id":45501,"date":"2026-03-24T20:16:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=45501"},"modified":"2026-03-24T20:16:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:46:47","slug":"heres-how-much-profit-did-the-previous-owner-make-after-selling-the-rajasthan-royals-to-15300-crore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/cricket\/ipl\/heres-how-much-profit-did-the-previous-owner-make-after-selling-the-rajasthan-royals-to-15300-crore\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s how much profit did the previous owner make after selling the Rajasthan Royals to 15,300 crore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Rajasthan Royals have become the first franchise in Indian Premier League history to be sold for over $1 billion, marking a major moment in the league\u2019s financial evolution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The franchise has been acquired by a consortium led by Kal Somani, with the deal set to give the group 100% ownership after the IPL 2026 season. The total valuation stands at $1.63 billion ( \u20b915,000 \u2013 \u20b915300 crore).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Somani, a US-based entrepreneur and investor, has built a strong reputation at the intersection of technology, data governance, and sports business. Based in Scottsdale, he has spent over 15 years founding and leading ventures across ed-tech, AI governance, and data privacy. Beyond technology, Somani has been steadily expanding his footprint in the global sports ecosystem through strategic investments.\u00a0Several media reports suggest that <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Kal Somani<\/span><\/span> was raised in a small town in India and pursued studies in electronics and telecommunications at a local university, before relocating to the United States in 1998.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Rajasthan Royals journey highlights one of the most remarkable value jumps in sports business. The franchise, which won the inaugural Indian Premier League season in 2008, was acquired by Emerging Media Ventures, led by Manoj Badale, for approximately \u20b9268 crore the lowest bid among the original teams. Over nearly two decades, its value has surged by more than 2,300%. This means the original investors have made over 23 times (23x) returns in 18 years, reflecting the IPL\u2019s rise into one of the world\u2019s most lucrative sports properties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before the sale, Emerging Media Ventures held a 65% stake in the franchise, with additional investments from RedBird Capital (15%) and Lachlan Murdoch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The record valuation of the Royals surpasses the previous benchmark set in 2021, when the Lucknow Super Giants were acquired by the RPSG Group for $940 million. However, the record may not stand for long, with a potential sale of Royal Challengers Bengaluru expected to approach the $2 billion mark.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The deal represents a massive return for the previous owners, turning a relatively modest initial investment into one of the most profitable exits in the history of franchise cricket.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rajasthan Royals have become the first franchise in Indian Premier League history to be sold for over $1 billion,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":473,"featured_media":45502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3801,5000,465],"class_list":["post-45501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ipl","tag-ipl","tag-kal-somani","tag-rajasthan-royals"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/473"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45501"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45524,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45501\/revisions\/45524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}