Shah Rukh Khan's IPL team, which he co-owns with Juhi Chawla and her husband Jay Mehta, KKR, won the cricket championship last year, making the superstar exceptionally proud. SRK has been associated with IPL since its inception as the co-owner of IPL, and the actor is seen attending matches of his team every year along with his family. With the next season of IPL approaching, the founder of IPL, Lalit Modi, spoke about the actors association with the franchise.
In an interview with Raj Shamani for his podcast, Lalit Modi reflected on how SRK played a pivotal role in garnering attention from women and children to the game. He said, "For me, Shah Rukh Khan was going to bring in women and children into the game. Women and children were extremely important for IPL to click in terms of viewership. For it to work, we kept SRK vs Vijay Mallya on the first day. Two most glamorous people, full of life and they live life king-size."
Lalit Modi also tagged him as the "Pillar of IPL" during the conversation.
He further added, "While Vijay would throw parties for us, SRK would bring his friends and all the stars into the stadium, and we needed that. We only sold day 1 tickets, and the day 2 tickers were not at all sold. I thought to get people into the stadium we need Shah Rukh Khan."
However, SRK was not always keen on bidding for an IPL team; it was Lalit Modi who convinced him to do that. The actor was hesitant and had asked for help from the businessman in understanding how everything works since he did not know much about cricket.
Lalit Modi shared, "I said to Shah Rukh, 'You need to own a cricket team.' He said, 'Lalit bhai, I don't know what cricket is.' He had a football with him that day, I remember. He and Aryan (his son) were playing football. He said, 'I don't know anything about cricket. If you tell me you're investing, I trust you. I will invest. But you have to hold my hand show us how to do it."
The founder of IPL had suggested that if the actor were to invest in a team, he be present at all the matches that the particular team plays- to which SRK had replied "I have film commitments." But Modi had guaranteed that IPL was going to be bigger than any of his films. Modi recalled, "In December 2007, before the tender went out, in principle he said, 'Okay, I will come in' and that was it."
Right from the get-go, SRK was not settled on bidding for KKR. Modi shared, "Shah Rukh Khan's main interest was bidding for Ahmedabad or Mumbai. It was all about the top bid. He put a low number for Ahmedabad and ended up getting Kolkata. But, his first choice was Mumbai, however, Mukesh Ambani took it. Then, his second choice was Banglore, which was taken by Vijay Mallya. Then his third choice was Delhi which was also taken by another bidder. His bid was much lower, around 85 million, whereas all these teams were above 100 billion, like Chennai, shockingly Hyderabad was 100 billion."
"Then came Kolkata, which was around 85 or 87 billion. Shah Rukh Khan was pivotal in me getting into a bid, but that did not make any difference to the IPL. It just became big news. Then Preity was a part of Punjab, but she wasn't as big news as SRK. It was important for me to get people who were big spenders," added Modi. This is how SRK came into buying KKR and eventually got Juhi Chawla and her husband Jay Mehta as co-owners of the team on board as well.
