An Indian Premier League franchise owner said that the seven-week duration of the IPL seems "tedious to many," but it is "not long enough to develop a business model around it," according to Gautam Bhattacharyya of GULF NEWS. King’s XI Punjab co-Owner Mohit Burman said, "The two-month period of the league is actually rather short to develop a business model." While the IPL bandwagon "is ready to take the UAE fans by storm in a week’s time, the reality is that barring one or two teams, it had been a losing proposition for the rest of them during the past six years." There have been at least three owners who "have stepped aside the wealthy league in the past few years after failing to cope with the heavy financial overheads." Burman said that "there are also a number of factors as to why merchandising" -- a major source of revenue for sports clubs abroad -- "have not gathered pace in the IPL." He said, "As per the current auction rules where a team can contract a player for three years, the profile of stars in each team changes frequently to build a loyalty base. In any case, it takes anything between a period of five to 10 years to create the kind of following for merchandising to really prosper" (GULF NEWS, 4/7).
