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Pune and Kochi have been revealed as the two new Indian Premier League (IPL) teams that are to join the league in the coming season. Shockingly though, the amount paid for them amounted to three times the highest bid in the first auction three years ago!

The highest bid last time around was $112 million, paid by Mukesh Ambani to acquire Mumbai Indians, and this time Sahara Adventure Sports of the Sahara Group won the Pune franchise with a record bid of $370 million, while a consortium called Rendezvous Sports Group, which is backed by the minister of state for external affairs - Shashi Tharoor, made Kochi a surprise IPL host with a $333-million bid.  This goes to show the enormous success the Twenty20 tournament has had since its inception in 2008, though some analysts argued that it might take quite a while for the bidders to earn their cost back.

The two winning bids, working out to Rs 3,235.5 crore at an exchange rate of Rs 46/US dollar, beat the Rs 2,840 crore that the eight teams fetched in total in the previous auction.

This is what IPL commissioner Lalit Modi had to say at a crowded press conference in Chennai on Sunday:

“There is no recession and IPL’s upward swing continues,” he said, adding that bids from all the five qualified bidders — Rendezvous Sports, Aman Vohra, Sahara Adventure Sports, Adani Infrastructure and VC Digital Solutions (belonging to Venugopal Dhoot, chairman & MD of Videocon Industries) — were competitive.

Sahara had made bids amounting to $370-million for Ahmedabad and Nagpur as well but chose Pune. The western India city also received bids from VC Digital Solutions ($320 million) and Aman Vohra ($261 million).

“It’s sad that we lost by just $10 million. We had a foreign investor backing us financially,” said Mr Dhoot.

Sahara Group chief Subrata Roy said the group is strengthening its 13-year relationship with Indian cricket by getting involved in the business of cricket. Sahara is also the Indian cricket team’s sponsor.

“Naturally, the valuations have risen exponentially from what they were three years ago. So, we believe the bid we placed is justified,” said Mr Roy.

It’s an interesting diversification for a group that has been going through tough times. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has barred its financial arm from raising deposits since 2008, it sold off its loss-making airline business to Jet Airlines and the real estate business has just begun to come out of a market crash.

A person close to the group said there are interested parties to pick a stake in the Pune franchisee and Sahara may consider this option to raise resources.

One such interested party could be Mr Dhoot. “We are still keen on cricket, if any existing team is willing to offload a 10% stake to us,” he told ET. The second-highest bid was received from Rendezvous Sports, a five-member consortium based in Kerala — Vivek Venugopal (Elite group), Anchor Switches, Rosy Blue Diamond, Mukesh Patel and Shailendra Gaikwad.

“This consortium has taken shape over the last year and half and we look upon Shashi Tharoor as our mentor and guide,” said Vivek Venugopal of the Elite group, who is in the consortium in his personal capacity.

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