REGIONAL television network Sun TV on Thursday (October 25) won an auction to buy the Indian Premier League team based in Hyderabad after the cash-strapped Deccan Chronicle group was forced to sell.
Sun TV, owned by the Chennai-based Maran group, put in the highest bid of $15.9m (£9.86m) a year for the rights to the franchise in the lucrative Twenty20 league that was founded in 2008.
“The IPL Governing Council met earlier today in Mumbai to open the bids for a new IPL franchise,” the Board of Control for Cricket in India said in a statement.
“Sun TV network have won the Hyderabad franchise for an amount of Rs850.50m ($15.9m) per year.”
It was not known whether Sun TV will retain the team’s previous name of the Deccan Chargers.
The Deccan Chronicle media group, which bought the Chargers before the inaugural IPL season, was thrown out of the league due to financial violations including failure to pay players’ salaries.
The Sun TV network runs 32 channels, mainly in south Indian languages, which reach 95 million households, according to its website. The network is also viewed in 27 other countries.
Among the players signed up with the Hyderabad franchise are Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka, South African fast bowler Dale Steyn and Australian batsman Cameron White.
The Chargers won the tournament in 2009 but finished second-last this year.
The new franchise will join the eight other teams from Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Delhi, Mohali, Pune and Jaipur in the sixth edition of the IPL scheduled for April-May next year.
