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Former owner Vijay Mallya reveals how he ended up buying Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the real reason why he did so.
Vijay Mallya says he bid USD 112 million to buy RCB. (Screengrab/rajshamani)
Vijay Mallya, the former owner of Royal Challengers Bengaluru, says he bought the IPL franchise with a sole intention of promoting his whiskey brand. Mallya says he even flirted with the idea of buying multiple teams for each of his brands before former IPL chairman Lalit Modi poured cold water on the ambitions by revealing that he can only own one franchise.
Mallya made the revelations during a chat with Raj Shamani on the latter’s YouTube channel.
“I was thinking of ways to take Royal Challenge whiskey to the next level which required a lot of marketing, innovation and thinking,” Mallya said. “At the time IPL was conceived, I was actually sitting in the BCCI committee as the representative of the Karnataka State Cricket Association. And I was very impressed with the pitch that Lalit Modi made to the BCCI committee about this league.
Mallya claims he ended up being the highest bidder for as many as three franchises and chose Bengaluru.
“…He (Modi) was jumping through the hoops. BCCI was quite bureaucratic at that time. He called me one day and said ‘Ok fine, we are ready to go, teams are going to be auctioned. Are you going to buy?’ And I thought in a country where cricket is a religion, what better platform can I have to promote my brand than through an IPL franchise. I got greedy. I wanted one for Kingfisher, one for Royal Challenge (whisky brand). He said you cannot possibly have two (franchises),” Mallya said.
“Bidding time came, and I was pretty excited about having an IPL team to promote my brands. I bid for three franchises, and I lost Mumbai by a very small amount of money. I obviously chose Bangalore. And it was natural that would be Royal Challengers Bangalore. That was how RCB was born,” he added.
Mallya reiterated that his ‘sole purpose’ behind owning a cricket team was to promote his brand. “The sole purpose always was promotion of Royal Challenge whiskey brand. So, it was very much business driven. It’s a very profitable independent business,” he said.
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