The Bangladesh Cricket Board has announced the seven teams for the upcoming three editions and Basundhara Group's Rangpur, the former champions of the Bangladesh Premier League, is back in the fold.
While Basundhara made a comeback, neither Beximco Limited nor Gemcon Group, the two teams that featured regularly in the first cycle of the BPL, showed any interest to be part of the tournament.
Earlier, the BCB had floated the tender for the franchise rights for 2023-2025, with nine parties submitting the Expression of Interest (EOI) for the rights to become one of the seven franchises.
The BCB have also fixed the dates of the BPL for the coming three years. The 2023 edition of the BPL will run from January 5 to February 16, BPL 2024 will be held from January 6 to February 17 while the BPL 2025 is scheduled for January 1 to February 11.
The last two editions of the BPL were held with only local players due to the Covid-19 situation. The previous edition of the BPL was held at the start of 2022 after a postponement, with the BCB selling franchise rights for only one year.
"After detailed evaluation and assessment of the EOI documents submitted by prospective owners, the BPL (Bangladesh Premier League) T20 Governing Council has invited the following parties to complete the process of securing Franchise Ownership Rights for the next three (9th, 10th & 11th) editions of the tournament," BPL governing council said in a statement.
Monarch Holding, one of the business entity belonging to Shakib Al Hasan, also submitted the EOI but BPL governing council did not consider the firm.
"We did not allow the team of Shakib as there were some issues related to that specific company that was coming up in the media. We took everything into consideration before selecting the business houses," Ismail Haider, the BPL governing council secretary, told Cricbuzz.
Meanwhile, the BPL governing council accepted the plea of reigning champions Comilla Victorians even though they submitted their EOI after the deadline stipulated by the board.
"We have allowed Comilla to play in the tournament even though they applied after the deadline due to the fact one cannot forget their contribution towards making BPL successful," added Haider.
Cricbuzz understands that the player draft will be held on either October 7 or 8 while the selected business houses have been asked to deposit BDT 10 Crores to get the franchise rights for the first year of the tournament.
The BCB will get BDT 1.5 Crore as franchise fees while the rest of the amount will be kept for players payments, accommodation and other expenses for the franchises.
The BPL governing council is expected to to have a meeting on September 26 to chalk out their next course of action.
BPL Franchises: Fortune Barishal Sports Ltd (Barishal), Mindtree Limited (Khulna), Progoti Green Auto Rice Mills Ltd (Dhaka), Future Sports Bangladesh Limited (Sylhet), Bashundhara Group's Toggi Sports Limited (Rangpur), Delta Sports Ltd (Chattogram) Comilla Legends Limited (Comilla).
