IPL commissioner and BCCI vice-president, Lalit Modi, has hinted that there could be two IPL tournaments from next year onwards, one a longer version in India, and the other, a smaller one outside the country. Talking to a newspaper, Modi said, “The IPL will be based in India, but the second season we are planning gives us the chance to see if a market exists and we are seriously looking at what we can do with it.”
Modi said that he was very encouraged by the kind of response that the fans in South Africa gave the tournament and that has given the IPL to turn from being a challenge to an opportunity this year. “It is fans who determine if you are successful or not and they have come out in force here. It has shown that the tournament can be in any region, in any country,” he said.
The ICC has already advised I.S.Bindra to look into an IPL-like model for the country of the USA in the near future, and Modi thinks that it could be one of the choices for being the host for this smaller version of the Indian Premier League. He also said that there may be challenges with the USA as host, but nothing that cannot be resolved. “America throws up challenges but the format we have developed works,” he added.
Modi said that they did not have cognizance of whether the IPL could be organised outside the country of its inception, but he was now confident that they would be able to host it anywhere in the world.