Now that the hype has died down a little bit, the franchises have started to look inward to figure out what the hell they’ve promised. And it turns out, the picture isn’t as rosy as they’d thought.

The UB group, the owners of the Bangalore Royal Challengers have calculated that the team will take 6-7 years to break even, best case. They’re looking at a loss of Rs. 25-30 Crores in the first year alone. SRK even said last week that this whole IPL thing is going to be an experiment for him, and if it doesn’t work out (he gave himself one year), he’s going “back to the basics” of making movies.

The first dispute between the franchises and the BCCI has already broken out over how to share the money made by selling tickets at the stadiums. The teams are trying out all kinds of innovative stuff like Season tickets and “donor passes” for these matches, but the BCCI wants to know how exactly the money is going to be split. Technically, the teams are still playing at BCCI-owned stadiums, even though they’ve started calling them their “home stadiums”. Apparently, 80% of the tickets will be sold by the home team, with the rest of the 20% going to the state cricket associations.

The pricing of the tickets themselves is a big unknown. Charu Sharma, the CEO of the Bangalore team, said yesterday that the tickets would be priced at “half the one-day-international” prices. But the biggest point of contention is that the UB group is planning to sell alcohol inside the stadium. Their argument is that its done internationally and helps with the spirit of the game, but the Bangalore police have seen red in this, fearing its going to turn into one big drunken party for 40,000 people.

The teams have to start figuring out how to supplement their revenues if they’re going to be anywhere close to break even. The biggest bet they’re making is merchandising, hoping to sell team T-Shirts and caps and what-nots at premium prices. But I’m skeptical this is going to work. Cheap knock-offs are almost certainly going to hit the streets as soon as the real thing does, and its going to be a hell-of-a-lot-cheaper than the official goods. They’re even hoping the “premium tickets” - Tickets right above the pavilion - will go for very high prices to offset the low price of the other tickets.

All in all, there are a lot of unknowns in the financial planning of the leagues. The Bangalore team has been pretty open in discussing matters of financial interest with the press, but we don’t really know what the other teams are thinking. Since they’re all private entities, this probably is not going to come out ever. But starting next year, when the players start getting traded between the teams like horses, we’ll perhaps get some indication about the financial health of these franchises.