IPL 2019 to be held entirely in India from 23 March

New Delhi: The 12th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will be held entirely in India from 23 March 2019, laying to rest fan and advertiser fears that 2019 Lok Sabha elections will play spoilsport with the popular T20 cricket tournament.

The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) met in New Delhi on Tuesday to discuss the T20 venues and decided that the tournament will be hosted in the country.

“Based on the preliminary discussions with the appropriate central and state agencies/authorities, it was decided that IPL 2019 will be scheduled to be played in India,” said a statement from the Board of Control for Cricket in India. “It is also proposed that the tournament will commence on March 23, 2019.”

“The COA will have detailed discussion with all the stakeholders before releasing the full schedule of the tournament,” read the statement.

The decision has put multiple concerns and speculations to rest that BCCI would have had to host IPL 2019 outside India as the dates might have clashed with the schedule for general elections due by May.

IPL was moved out of India during the previous two general elections due to security concerns as the governments then refused to security cover for the matches across different cities.

In 2009, the entire tournament was held in South Africa while in 2014, the first 20 matches were held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at three different stadiums in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah; the remaining matches were held in India from 2 May after the elections.

IPL has been both a money-spinner and an engrossing cricket league. Star India, the official broadcaster of IPL 2019, earned more than ₹ 2,000 crore in ad revenues in 2018.

IPL 2018 had generated a total viewership of about 1.4 billion, almost 15% more than the previous year. IPL 2017 had managed to touch 1.2 billion impressions, numbers from Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India show. Impressions refer to the number of individuals in thousands of a target audience who viewed an event, averaged across minutes.