Inside the Race for the Next Billion-Dollar League

The $16 billion IPL is the biggest T20 cricket league in the world. A battle is raging for second place

- Venkat Ananth

On 25 May, Zimbabwe's 39-year-old all-rounder Sikandar Raza made headlines, but not just because he scored the winning runs for Lahore Qalanders in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) final at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. Less than 24 hours earlier, he had been in Nottingham, donning Test whites for his country and fighting a losing battle against England at Trent Bridge. His frantic transcontinental double-duty isn't just a curiosity; it is emblematic of the T20 cricket era we live in, one where jet lag is a minor inconvenience in the face of opportunity.

Raza's back-to-back assignments across formats and continents capture the breakneck expansion of the global T20 ecosystem. As of mid-2025, there are 17 active T20 leagues around the world. This year will see the debut of the European T20 Premier League, a tri-board venture from Ireland, Scotland, and the Netherlands, backed by Bollywood star Abhishek Bachchan. If 2008 was the birth of the franchise era, 2025 might go down as the year it became a full-blown arms race.

The stakes are rising. In February, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) concluded the sale of stakes in all eight franchises of The Hundred, raising £975 million and valuing the four-year-old 100-ball competition at nearly $1.3 billion. In March, reports surfaced of Saudi Arabia exploring a "global league" to disrupt and reorganize cricket's fragmented calendar. April brought news of New Zealand Cricket acquiring part-ownership in a Major League Cricket (MLC) franchise in the US, a first for any board.

Leagues that once seemed insular and region-focused are now recalibrating. The PSL is considering expanding from six to eight teams. Australia's Big Bash League (BBL) is weighing privatization. What was once an experimental format for a sport has become its primary engine of growth: commercially, culturally, and strategically.