Who owns PSL cricket teams

Pakistan is a cricket loving nation. The cricket matches between Pakistan and India are biggest sports event and therefore good business opportunity for sponsors.

Pakistanis use to spend a lot of time on watching the game as it is long game unlike football.

Pakistan Cricket Board in its effort to reintroduce international cricket in Pakistan, established Pakistan Super League (PSL). PSL is a single entity and has five cricket teams as its franchises. The commercial rights to the initial franchises were sold for PKR 9.85 billion ( 91.4 million $) for a span of 10 years in December 2015. The first session, held in 2016, yielded 2.6 million $ in profit.

Owners of these teams are:-

Karachi Kings is owned by ARY Media Group. ARY Media Group is owned by  Salman Iqbal, whose net income for year is 90 million$.¹ Karachi King was sold to ARY Media Group for a period of 10 years, from December 2015, for 26 million$, thus making it the most expensive PSL team.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Lahore Qalandars are owned by Qatar Lubricants Company limited (QALCO). QALCO is the only state-of-the-art lubricants blending plant in Qatar. This company is headed by Rana Fawad. It is the second most expensive team after Karachi Kings and was priced at 24 million $ in December 2015.

Peshawar Zalmi was sold to Haier Paksitan for 10 year period against 16 million US dollars. Javed Afridi is the CEO of Haier Pakistan. Haier Pakistan is subsidiary of Haier Group Corporation based in China.

Quetta Gladiators is owned by Omar Associates, a Karachi based company. The company was founded in 1969. Nadeem Omar is presently the CEO of the company. The group was basically a construction company but now the group is planning to enter into mining sector. The group acquired the franchise for 11 million$.

Islalmabad United Leonine Global Sports won the bid for franchise rights of Islamabad United for a decade against 15 million$. Leonine Global Sports is owned by venture capital firm Leonine Global which is based in UAE. The sports entity Leonine Global Sports also owns a franchise team in Hong Kong T20 League. The venture capital firm is owned by Ali Naqvi.  Ali Naqvi is a renowned businessman having business interests in different countries.

Related links

1. Salman Iqbal

2.    Islamabad United 

3. Ali Naqvi