Shahrukh brought women, children into the game: Lalit Modi on how the superstar changed IPL
Businessman Lalit Modi recently shared how important it was for IPL to bring in Shah Rukh Khan to increase viewership. He further revealed that the team the actor now co-owns, KKR, was never his first choice.
With the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) season just months away, IPL founder Lalit Modi reflected on the origins of the world’s biggest cricket tournament. Lalit acknowledged SRK’s significant contribution to the IPL, saying that his participation played a vital role in attracting women and children to the game, which was essential to increase viewership of the tournament.
“For me, Shahrukh Khan was going to bring women and children into the game. Women and children were extremely important in driving the IPL forward in terms of viewership. To make it successful we had SRK vs Vijay Mallya on the first day. “Two of the most glamorous people, full of life and they live life king size,” Lalit said on Raj Shamani Podcast.
“While Vijay used to organize parties for us, Shahrukh used to bring his friends and all the stars to the stadium and we needed that. We only sold tickets for the first day and the tickets for the second day were not sold at all. I thought people would be interested in it. We need Shahrukh Khan to be included in the stadium.”
While Shahrukh’s KKR is now one of the biggest teams in the league Dear Teams, Modi revealed that it was not the actor’s first choice.
Lalit revealed that Shahrukh was more keen on getting franchises in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad before choosing Kolkata.
“Shah Rukh Khan’s main interest was to bid for Ahmedabad or Mumbai. It was all about the top bid. He put in low numbers for Ahmedabad and eventually got Kolkata. But, his first choice was Mumbai, however, Mukesh Ambani took it. Then his second choice was Bengaluru, which was taken by Vijay Mallya, then his third choice was Delhi, which was taken by another bidder, his bid was very low, around 85 million, while all these Teams like Chennai Hyderabad was shockingly above 100 billion.
Adding further, Lalit said, “Then came Kolkata, which was around 85 or 87 billion. Shahrukh Khan had an important role in bidding for me, but it did not make any difference to the IPL. This became big news. Preeti was a part of Punjab then, but she was not as big news as Shahrukh. It was important for me to find people who spent a lot.”
IPL 2025 auction is to be held on November 24 and 25 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as 10 franchises aim to finalize their teams for the upcoming season. Under the revised rules ahead of the mega auction, teams can retain a maximum of six players or choose to retain five and exercise the Right to Match (RTM) option for one player they choose during the auction. Want to regain.
