Billionaire battle between Ranjan Pai, Adar Poonawalla, and others to buy RCB ahead of IPL 2026
The battle of billionaire has heated up between Ranajn Pai, Adar Poonwalla and others as the 2025 champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) ahead of the 2026 season.
The champions of the 2025 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), are currently the most valuable franchise of the league’s history as they are looking for new ownership, with speculations going on about their potential bidders. Among the local names in the table for the billionaire franchise are Nikhil Kamath and Ranjan Pai.
Kamath is the co-founder of the discount brokerage platform Zerodha, and Pal is the chairman of the Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG). Both are Kannadigas, and they have the financial clout to bid for a franchise worth more than a billion dollars. Anyone would want a local face for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru side to connect with the passionate fans of the army.
“At the right valuation, @RCBTweets is a great team” — that brought to public notice that the Bengaluru team, with Virat Kohli as its anchor player, was in play. Poonawalla is the CEO of Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, and his family, according to Forbes, is worth more than $20 billion.” Diageo confirmed that it had set in motion the process of selling RCB.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru look for local potential bidders ahead of IPL 2026
Pai and Poonawalla could also take the bid for the franchise, as the reports of the Times of India addressed. An email was sent to Pai, and messages to Kmath’s team have not responded till now. Forbes has claimed that Pai has an estimated net worth of $2.8 billion, while Kamath’s stands at $2.5 billion.
The Forbes report from 2022 pointed out the value of RCB at just over $1 billion. That was three years ago, and with the championship victory, it will grow going into the next season. The investment showed the business value reaching $18.5 billion and a brand value of $3.9 billion in 2025.
Bengaluru finished the league stage of the tournament in the second position with the help of nine victories in 14 encounters at a net run rate of +0.301. They beat the Punjab Kings in the final at the Narendra Modi Stadium to lift their maiden trophy.
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