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*[[Twenty20 Champions League]]
*[[Twenty20 Champions League]]
*[[Twenty20 Cup]]
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*[[Gabriella Demetriades]]


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 19:48, 14 April 2010

Lalit Kumar Modi
Born (1963-11-29) November 29, 1963 (age 60)
New Delhi, India
Occupation(s)Businessman, Commissioner of the IPL and Vice President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Known forCreating and managing the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament.
ChildrenKarima Burman[1], Aliya Modi and Ruchir Modi[2]

Lalit Kumar Modi, (Template:Lang-hi; born November 29, 1963, Delhi, India)[3] is an Indian cricket administrator and a businessman. He is the Chairman and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League, Chairman of the Champions League (since September 2008), Vice President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) since 2005 and Vice President of the Punjab Cricket Association[4]. He is also the President and Managing Director of Modi Enterprises, the industrial conglomerate created and run by his family, and Executive Director of Godfrey Phillips India, part of the Modi Enterprises business empire.

Background and personal life

Lalit Modi was born into a wealthy and successful business family. His father, Krishan Kumar Modi, is Chairman of Modi Enterprises, a 40 billion Rs business empire which was founded by his grandfather, Raj Bahadur Gujarmal Modi[5](Founder of town Modinagar).He attended schools in Shimla and Nainital. He disliked school, and often ran away. After his schooling, he was determined to continue with his studies in the United States. He scored well in the SAT (essential for gaining entrance to a US college or university), and chose to skip the school-leaving examination, which was required for entrance to colleges and universities in India. Subsequently, he gained a place at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States.[6] He is married to Minal and has had two children with her Ruchir and Aliya. His son Ruchir currently lives in Mumbai with him and is studying at the American School of Bombay. Aliya currently lives in Switzerland and is currently studying there. Minal's daughter from her previous marrage Karima is married and living in London now. He has a grand daughter from Karima, Arya who is 1 year old.

Career

While studying at Pace University and Duke University between 1983 and 1986, he spent some time at Philip Morris in 1985 and Estée Lauder in 1986. He was President of International Tobacco Company from 1987 to 1991, and then in 1992 was appointed an Executive Director of Godfrey Phillips India.[7] At around the same time, he started to work on initiatives in the entertainment industry. He worked on a joint venture with Disney, distributing ESPN (then owned by Disney) in India, and persuading ESPN to start showing cricket matches.[6] He put forward proposals for a "limited over" cricket league which he believed would be more television-friendly, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) turned them down. Frustrated, he decided to obtain a place on the board of the BCCI in order to influence it from the inside. He obtained membership of the Rajasthan Cricket Association by concealing his last name. He eventually became president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, which gave him a seat on the BCCI. In 2005, Modi figured in a power struggle that resulted in Sharad Pawar, an influential politician and national cabinet minister, ousting former Indian cricket supremo and International Cricket Council chief Jagmohan Dalmiya in BCCI elections. Modi was then appointed Vice-President of the BCCI. Heavily involved in the commercial side of the Board's activities, he is reported to have increased their revenues sevenfold between 2005 and 2008, with the BCCI then reporting annual revenues of over 1 billion USD.[8] Finally, in 2008, he launched the Indian Premier League (IPL), a league based around Twenty20 cricket, where each team is limited to batting for a maximum of 20 overs.

Controversy

As a student at Duke University, USA in 1985, Modi was convicted for possessing 400 grams of cocaine and charged with assault and kidnapping. Modi pleaded guilty to the crime when the case was heard in the Durham County court, North Carolina and later entered a plea bargain, which resulted in a suspended two year prison sentence.[9]

Security threats to Lalit Modi

Towards the end of March 2009 the Mumbai police were interrogating underworld don Chota Shakeel's arrested hit man Rashid Malabari and during the interrogation he had revealed that there were planning to assassinate cricket chief Lalit Modi, his wife Minal and son Ruchir. This was cross referenced by an government intelligence agency picked up a phone conversation between Chota Shakeel and his boss Dawood Ibrahim instructing him to hire 4 assassins to assassinate Modi and his family either in South Africa or in India. Currently Modi is under constant threat and has three layers of security cordon around him 24*7 and travels around in a bullet proof car.

$975m ESPN deal

The Economic Times quoted:

Cricket economics has once again hit the roof. Sports broadcaster ESPN Star Sports (ESS) has paid a staggering $975 million for exclusive global commercial rights for the Twenty20 Champions League for a 10-year period, starting with the inaugural tournament between October 8–23 this year (2009).

The deal, which gives ESS rights for all T20 Champions League seasons until 2017, makes it the highest cricket tournament by value on a per game basis. Earlier this year, the World Sports Group-Sony Entertainment consortium had paid BCCI $918 million for 10-year global rights for the India Premier League (IPL).

Apart from ESS, bids were received from Abu Dhabi Sports Club and Dubai International Capital (DIC). While the DIC bid was for $751.3 million, Abu Dhabi Sports Club’s bid, being a conditional one, was disqualified. ESS had bid $900 million for the deal and an additional $75 million for marketing.

Twenty20 Champions League, modelled after the football champions league, would feature the best teams of the domestic Twenty20 tournaments in various countries. It is being jointly organised by the Indian, Australian and South African cricket boards. The inaugural league, with $6-million prize money, will feature eight teams — two each from India, Australia and South Africa and the champions from the England and Pakistan domestic leagues. The prize money will be shared between the teams and their playrs.

“This deal will cement our relationship with BCCI, Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa and we are committed to setting new benchmarks in broadcast and distribution,” ESS MD Manu Sawhney said in a statement. IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi said: “We believe this is the best commercial deal for Champions League.”

[10][11][12][13]

Tax Payer

As of October 31, 2009 Indian Premier League chief, Lalit Modi has claimed the top slot as the highest tax payer in the country for the current fiscal. He has already paid Rs 8 crore in the first half of the current fiscal.[14]

Awards and recognitions

In March 2008, he was listed among India's 30 most powerful people by the India Today magazine.[15]
Fast Company awarded the Indian Premier League, a national cricket league, in its Most Innovative Companies 2010 award and credited Lalit Modi for adopting a sped-up version of the game called Twenty20, which cuts matches from multiple days to a more TV-friendly three hours with great commercial success.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ipl/photos/iplphoto/5726782.cms
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ "Lalit Modi - Cricinfo profile". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
  4. ^ "Bindra remains Punjab Cricket Association president". Cricinfo. August 18, 2008. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
  5. ^ "Modi Enterprises - About Us - Founder". Modi Enterprises. Retrieved 5 February 2010.
  6. ^ a b Bhattacharya, Debaashis (19 April 2009). "Who's this man?". The Telegraph. Retrieved 5 February 2010.
  7. ^ "Business Week profile - Lalit Modi". Business Week. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
  8. ^ Wade, Matt (8 March 2008). "The tycoon who changed cricket". The Age. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
  9. ^ Sharma, Nagendar; Gupta, Varun (28 May 2008). "Drug rap returns to haunt IPL boss Modi". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  10. ^ "ESPN strikes $975m deal for T20 league". The Economic Times. 12 September 2008. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  11. ^ "ESPN-Star bags Champions League T20 rights for $975m". Business Standard. 12 September 2008. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  12. ^ Ramamurthy, Ramya (12 September 2008). "ESPN-Star Sports bags $975-m T20 deal for 10 yrs". moneycontrol.com. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  13. ^ "T20 Champs rights sold for $900m". The Saudi Gazette. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  14. ^ Thakur, Pradeep (31 October 2009). "Lalit Modi, Jagan among top taxpayers". The Times of India. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  15. ^ Wade, Matt (8 March 2008). "The tycoon who changed cricket". The Age. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  16. ^ "Most Innovative Companies 2010". Fast Company. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
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