Royal Challengers Bengaluru led by Rajat Patidar won IPL 2025. Royal Challengers Bengaluru was the second most expensive franchise when the BCCI sold the original eight teams in the IPL. Vijay Mallya bought the Bengaluru franchise for $111.6 million (Rs 446.40 million; $1 = 40 rupees) in 2008, just shy of the $111.90 million Reliance Industries paid for the Mumbai Indians.“My sole purpose behind buying RCB was to promote my whiskey brand, Royal Challenge; there was no love of cricket behind it,” Mallya said during a podcast recently about his decision to buy RCB.
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RCB’s big changes ahead of IPL: New rules, tribute and squad updateStructurally speaking, the team was owned by United Spirits/United Spirits subsidiaries (often described as Royal Challengers Sports/United Spirits Sports etc.), with Mallya’s UB Group as the promoter of United Spirits.In 2012–13, Diageo Group agreed to acquire control of United Spirits Limited (USL). By mid-2010, Diageo had effective and then majority control of USL and thus the franchise, although UB Holdings retained a minority stake in USL for some time.Vijay Mallya eventually left the USL board and relinquished active control of the franchise around 2016 amid legal and financial issues. This left Diageo/USL as the true owner and operator of RCB.In March 2024, the franchise officially changed its name from Royal Challengers Bangalore to Royal Challengers Bengaluru, in line with the city’s new spelling.RCB ended their IPL title drought by winning the title in 2025, the 18th edition of the T20 competition.In late 2025, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, owned by United Spirits Limited, a subsidiary of Diageo, put the franchise up for sale.Several bidders came to the table, with Aditya Birla Group, TOI Group, Bolt Ventures and the Blackstone consortium triumphing with the highest bid of $1.78 billion.In absolute terms, Royal Challengers Bengaluru has seen an increase in value of $1.67 billion over 18 years. This represents an increase of 1495 percent, or 16 times the original price paid by Vijay Mallya.
