Indian cricket which is usually half-mirage, half-lottery. “What happens in Indian cricket is not normal economics, it’s not even economics. It’s pure speculation,” says a consultant on one of the IPL bids.

What IPL intends to do is transform the very nature of the Indian cricket watcher using the narcotic of T20 cricket and the razzle-dazzle of Bollywood to turn him from a national supporter to a local fan.

Harish Thawani, chairman, Nimbus Communications Limited, which owns telecast right to all India’s home cricket, says, “Cricket has always had a support base on the lines of nations, it will be intriguing to see how fast IPL can get a supporter base behind cities.”

IPL will ask enough searching questions of all its stakeholders. About the individual franchises’ brand-building capacity, television’s propensity to turn a profit from anything in cricket and BCCI’s ability to deliver on its most ambitious project yet.

What’s in it for the owners?

To start with, acres of attention and piling costs. The franchises are a heady, telegenic cocktail of business and glamour. The presence of the movie stars will serve to give the teams some traction with locals while it is their business backers (like the Wadia, Burman and Paul clan behind Zinta or the presence of Jai Mehta along with Shah Rukh Khan) who will have to do the running.