MUMBAI: As the Board of Control for Cricket in India ( BCCI ) gears up for what’s slated to be a historic media rights auction of its prize property — the Indian Premier League ( IPL ) — on September 4, things are looking up for the eight franchises.Even by conservative estimates, each of them is set for a Rs 150-crore windfall starting next season — before a ball is bowled — making all of them profitable unless they embark on an extravagant spending spree.The math is simple. The media rights — television and digital for India and overseas — are expected to fetch at least Rs 12,000-14,000 crore for the next five years. Title sponsor Vivo has already committed Rs 2,199 crore, while there will be three or four official partners, shelling out Rs 700-800 crore between 2018 and 2022, swelling BCCI’s coffers by at least Rs 15,000 crore — Rs 3,000 crore per year.Starting 2018, BCCI will share 40% of this Rs 3,000 crore — or Rs 1,200 crore — among the eight IPL franchises.“At the given cost structure, all the teams will comfortably break even next year,” said a top executive of an IPL franchise who did not want to be named. “If the player cost doesn’t increase much, the profits will be upwards of Rs 50 crore.”Keeping costs in check will be critical to this calculation, as a team owner pointed out.“We are hoping that the central revenue pool will be significantly higher next year,” said Mohit Burman , co-owner of Kings XI Punjab. He however added that, historically, it has been difficult for the IPL franchises to make money. “So a higher revenue pool will only help if the cost also does not increase much.” All the franchise owners and executives ETspoke with were confident about a substantial markup in revenue, but none wanted to be more specific.“Yes, the central revenue pool will see an increase, but I don’t want to be presumptuous on what that number will be,” said Venky Mysore , CEO of Shah Rukh Khanowned Kolkata Knight Riders, the most profitable IPL franchise. “It will make a lot of franchises profitable, but the way we see, the health of a franchise has to be independent of central revenue. One has to build a brand and a fan base, which ensures good valuation.”All the franchises currently spend Rs 120-150 crore per year on average for running their teams.This includes player costs, franchise fees and other administrative and operating charges. In the last season, every franchise hadRs 66 crore for buying players, which most of them exhausted. However, from the next season, the teams will not pay a fixed franchise fee. Instead, they will be shelling out 20% of their revenue as franchise fee to BCCI.“From next year, every franchise will be a Rs 200 crore company. There is no reason for everyone not to be profitable, unless they spend too much on players,” said a sports marketing executive. “The only problem will be if all the players go for auctions and the player cap is increased to, say, Rs 100 crore. Because then many franchises may overbid for certain players and jeopardise profitability.”The three revenue streams for IPL franchises are central pool, sponsorship revenue and gate revenue (ticket sales).“The valuation is based on how strong is your brand and how many fans you have,” Mysore said. “If the brand is strong, other brands will want to associate with you and if the fan base is strong, it will result in increasing the gate revenues and merchandise. If you rely only on central revenue, you are not creating value but subsidising other costs. But yes, the revenue pool increase will make shareholders of all franchises happier.”