The Board of Control for Cricket in India decided against terminating the suspended Indian Premier League franchises of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, "putting an end to the speculation surrounding their fate and ensuring their comeback in the cash-rich league in 2018," according to the PTI. The board decided that it would go with the Supreme Court-appointed Justice R M Lodha committee's recommendation of "suspending the two teams for two years, making the next two IPLs an eight-team affair." The BCCI "did not clarify" whether IPL will be a 10-team affair from '18, when CSK and RR will come back to the fold. A senior BCCI office-bearer said, "The decision whether it will be a 10-team affair from 2018 will only be taken at the AGM where the other major decisions including bilateral series with Pakistan will be discussed." The BCCI said that it will "invite fresh bid for two new teams," which will be competing from '16 onward to complete the eight-team format in the absence of CSK and RR (PTI, 10/18). ESPN reported the BCCI's decision to invite bids for the next two years only indicated that it "was not looking to increase the number of franchises from eight." The IPL title sponsorship, meanwhile, "was given to Vivo Mobiles, a Chinese phone manufacturer." PepsiCo, the previous sponsor, "ended its deal with the league two years ahead of schedule" (ESPN, 10/18). REUTERS' Sudipto Ganguly wrote PepsiCo "bagged the IPL title sponsorship rights" in '12 for five years ('13-17) for 3.97B Indian rupees ($61.37M), "almost double" what DLF, India's biggest listed property developer, paid for the rights from '08-12. The board took some steps toward more transparency on Sunday by "appointing Pricewaterhouse Coopers to look into how its member associations utilize the funds distributed to them by their parent body" (REUTERS, 10/18).
