Bengaluru franchise was not Vijay Mallya's first choice: Lalit Modi

Published - 07 Jun 2025, 14:25 IST | Updated - 07 Jun 2025, 15:27 IST

Indian Premier League’s (IPL) founder Lalit Modi recently opened up about how Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) was at one point not being acquired. Modi, currently based in the UK, praised RCB’s recent title win in IPL 2025 and reflected on the franchise’s surprising inception in 2008.

Modi disclosed that the flamboyant businessman and former RCB owner, Vijay Mallya, had originally planned on owning the Mumbai franchise but was outbid by the Ambanis. He revealed that he later got Bengaluru rightfully as it was his home city. The IPL founder also mentioned that Mallya was the first person to be interested in the idea of the inception of the league and to endorse it.

"There is a lot of controversy about my good friend Vijay Mallya. He was the first person to have come on board for the IPL, and he was the one who blindly endorsed it before anybody, without even looking at a business model. His first choice was Mumbai, and he lost it by just USD 200,000 in the big auction. He got Bangalore (now Bengaluru), and rightfully so, because it is his birth city, home city, and it is where he came from.

"And RCB is what it is because Mallya made it at that time. It was Mallya's second choice, right? But the best choice for me. If it had been some other buyer, it definitely would not have been RCB, and it would have been something totally different. Nevertheless, as we sit here today, Vijay Mallya had the foresight and the understanding to get, number one, the Bangalore team," Modi revealed to Cricbuzz.

Modi also spoke about Virat Kohli’s entry into the league and how the RCB team have shown faith in him over the years. According to Modi, Kohli was an uncapped India A player available for a fixed price of USD 10,000 during the first season’s draft.

“Delhi had the first pick and didn’t select Virat. Vijay Mallya could have passed on him too, but he had the foresight to pick him. You've got to understand Virat was a young player in those days, and nobody knew him. When the time came to pick the uncapped players, this was the India A team, and they were going at a fixed price of USD 10,000. Delhi had the first pick. They didn't pick Virat. Vijay Mallya could have also let him go and he could have gone to somebody else, but he had the foresight to pick Virat. And Virat made it his home base. And today, 18 years later, Virat and his team have conquered the IPL and won the IPL," he added.

Meanwhile, Mallya, who recently featured on a podcast with Raj Shamani, confirmed Modi’s version and reflected on the early days of IPL bidding and explained his motivation for bidding on Bengaluru.

"I was very impressed with the pitch that Lalit Modi made to the BCCI committee about this league. He called me one day and said ok, teams are going to be auctioned. Are you going to buy it? So, I bid from three franchises, and I lost Mumbai by a very small amount of money. When I bid for the RCB franchise in 2008, I saw the IPL as a game-changer for Indian cricket.

"My vision was to create a team that embodied the spirit of Bangalore—vibrant, dynamic, glamorous. I paid $112 million, the second-highest bid, because I believed in the potential. I wanted RCB to be a brand that stood for excellence, not just on the field but off it too. That's why I tied it to Royal Challenge, one of our top-selling liquor brands, to give it that bold identity," Mallya said.