At 24, Keshav Bansal is the youngest ever owner of an IPl team. MEENAKSHI RAO caught up with this professional skydiving, squash playing Delhi youngster
At 24, many would be still looking for a career or in the midst of concretising one. Not Keshav Bansal though. As the youngest franchisee in the IPl’s rarified team owning firmament, he has emerged at the helm in many ways than one.
For starters, his team Gujarat lions, pretty much the same age as him in the domestic cricket league (count that as eight months and some days), has charted its way up to the top echelons of this year’s tournament with consummate ease, just like he himself did back in November 2015. During a business meeting at the BCCI office in Mumbai, shopping for a four-year on-ground sponsorship deal for all cricket series in India, Bansal learnt that new teams were in the process of being conceived.
“Within half a day, I prepared a presentation, worked out the logistics of my company entering the franchise space, and presented it to my chairman, my father, the next day. Broad economics we were aware of, plus minus 5 per cent was factored in,” he tells you, sitting across the table in stiff business clothes but with an eager smile on his face.
Two auctions down the line, and he had Gujarat lions in his pocket with Suresh Raina as skipper and at least five players each from the disintegrated CSK and Rajasthan Royal teams on his rolls.
Bansal’s company Intex Technologies as “India’s No 1 mobile making company” may look far removed from cricket but it has been using the sport to enhance its reach in India ever since he entered his teens as a sprightly Heritage School, VK, boy and the State’s squash talent.
Down the years, he has not only gathered a business degree from the Manchester Business School where he picked up his love for and worship of The Beautiful Game and its most feted club Manchester United, but also jumped off planes as a professional sky diver, explored the deep sea as a scuba diver, looked for perilous summits to bungee jump and kept up with swimming, table tennis, yoga and squash as a matter of routine.
“I am a fitness freak and make it a point to spend at least three hours on my body daily. I learnt professional sky diving in Spain in 10 days and have jumped off planes in South Africa and Dubai too. I make it a point to go scuba diving during all my vacations. Bungee jumping is another passion. I represented Delhi in squash for quite sometime,” he says.
Cricket, strangely, is one game he has not played or travelled much for. But, as he says, “everyone in India has an opinion on cricket and so do I,” adding quickly though that when it comes to his team Gujarat lions, he keeps his views to himself in decision-making as “delegation to experts” is always a good idea.
But that does not seem to have taken away from his business duties or the wherewithal of being a natty heir to his father’s young, expanding empire. “We have been on-ground sponsors of cricket in India since 2007 and also with the IPl since its inception,” Bansal reveals. So owning a team seemed to be only the next logical step in the same direction.
“For brand leverage, there is no other sports in India with more reach than cricket,” he admits, talking numbers around the sport he wants to eventually make big money on.
“A 10-15 per cent jump in assets every year speaks volumes about the stability of IPl. It is all in public domain how the IPl deal with MSN signed at $1.8 billion is set to double to $ 2.8-3 billion in 2017 when it is due for renewal. The valuation of the franchisees has also grown steadily in these nine years,” he points out, asserting with confidence that “we are here for two years during which time Intex would be looking for maximum reach and return through the game.”
The young gun would know what he is doing looking at the way his company has evolved in a short time. Intex Technologies started off as an IT firm in the 90s and by 2003 emerged as India’s No 1 firm manufacturing multi-media speakers. “In 2007, the mobile phone space saw a fast shift in India and that’s when we looked at it more specifically,” he says.
Point out to him that he is a bit too young to carry a high-end sporting team in his portfolio and he retorts: “Work has nothing to do with age, it is just a number. Your vision, objective and fundamentals should be clear. Yes, it feels nice to be called the youngest owner of a cricket team,” he adds.
Hands on on all aspects, primarily this is his first time in real-time IPl. “The idea was to understand the T20 format, own good aggressive batsmen and a well balanced team. We bought Aaron Finch. During the first round, no one had bid for him. Can you believe no one bid for him and he is World No 2,” Bansal says.
You may have noticed that smiling, well dressed boy sitting in the Gujarat lions VIP area on TV but Bansal’s interaction with his players is reasonably limited. “I don’t interfere in cricketing matters. I catch up with players post the match. As far as the cricketing decisions are concerned, I like the experts to deal with that,” he says.
For every franchise, the ability to make profits, depends on how successfully your team performs. “We have bid at minus 10 crore every year take a hit of 80 crore a year so even if we are able to break even it will be a great thing,” he tells you.
Most IPl team owners are twice his age, even more, but his interactions with the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, GMR and others have been a constant learning curve in tackling his own team’s requirements and positioning.
Friends with SRK. Summiteering with Ambanis, Raos and Zintas. Company on an upward spiral. life is buzzing for this Delhi youngster. So it was with his team too, which unfortunately could not qualify for the semi-final. But great for beginning, noIJ