RCB For Sale: What it Means To The Franchise and IPL

Royal Challengers Bengaluru make sale of franchise official as IPL is set to see major change.

RCB For Sale: What it Means To The Franchise and IPL

Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers (Image via NDTV Sports)

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The Royal Challengers Bengaluru ended their 18-year title drought at the 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League. That brought an altogether sense of relief for their die-hard loyal fans. Post that tremendous IPL campaign, the RCB franchise has taken another major step.

The franchise has been put up for sale. Yes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru is being sold. However, that should not bother their fans as a lot will remain intact and just the owners of the team will change from IPL 2026.

Diageo, which is the owner of the IPL and WPL teams of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru franchise, has made it official that the franchise will be sold and most likely by the 31st of March next year. Diageo, which is a UK based company, in its communication to the Bombay Stock Exchange, called this a “Strategic Review of the investment in Royal Challengers Sports Pvt. Ltd.”

The RCSPL is a wholly owned company of the United Spirits Ltd. The United Spirits Ltd. is the Indian subsidiary of Diageo, and one the UK based company has a major say in such sporting matters of the franchise.

USL is initiating a strategic review of the investment in its wholly owned subsidiary, RCSPL. RCSPL’s business comprises ownership of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) franchise teams that participate in the men’s Indian Premier League (IPL) and Women’s Premier League (WPL)cricket tournaments hosted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) annually.

Diageo in their communication with Bombay Stock Exchange

Managing director and CEO of the USL Praveen Someswar also added his input on this major decision in IPL cricket.

RCSPL has been a valuable and strategic asset for USL. However, it is non-core to our alcobev business. This step reinforces USL’s and Diageo’s commitment to continue reviewing their India enterprise portfolio to enable sustained delivery of long-term value to all stakeholders, while keeping RCSPL’s best interests in mind.

Praveen Someswar commented

Someswar’s quotes suggest that the USL doesn’t see cricket as part of its core business idea. Thus, it is looking to part ways with the sport and most likely even sell off the shares either wholly or partly. With the upcoming WPL expected to take place in the month of March, it will be interesting to see whether the RCB women’s team will play under the current ownership or a new one.

What will happen to the records and history of RCB cricket?

Fans and followers of the massive IPL franchise can breathe a sigh of relief. None of the records or history of the franchise will be affected with this move. Nor will the location of the franchise change. It will remain a Bengaluru based franchise, and the RCB fans can continue to shower their loyalty to the now ‘Defending Champions’.

The squad will remain the same too. If there will be a change, it could most likely be a ‘minor’ change in the name of the franchise. That change would take place purely as a new ownership move. This will come as a relief to the loyal fans who were afraid when this news had circulated for the first time.

How different is the RCB ownership change from the Deccan Chargers experience?

The sale of the Royal Challengers franchise is not the first of its kind. A sale of maybe not this magnitude but certainly of some substance, had taken place back in the year 2013. The Hyderabad based franchise was initially owned by the Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd. and the team was named Deccan Chargers.

However, in 2013 the ownership changed, and Sun TV won the bid to own the team. From then on, the franchise started to be called Sunrisers Hyderabad. However, there is a massive difference in the two change of ownerships.

RCB have no financial struggles like the ones Deccan Chargers had in the past.
Tillakaratne Dilshan and Dale Steyn (via ESPNcricinfo)

The current RCB franchise change is purely because the owner of the company wants to centralize his focus on its primary product, which is alcoholic beverages. Otherwise, the RCB team is a very profitable unit and has no worries or history of financial struggles.

In the case of Deccan Chargers though, the Deccan Chronicle company had gone bankrupt and was terminated by the BCCI due to financial issues and breaches of contract. It had become a non-profitable organization and could not bear the expenses of an IPL team. There is a lot more business action coming up on this major topic in the next few months.

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