Somebody in your family WhatsApp group has already sent it. A shiny graphic, very official-looking, announcing that IPL 2027 will have two new teams and almost a hundred matches. Maybe it named a city. Maybe it had a trophy emoji. It definitely had ten thousand shares.
We get asked about this constantly, so let’s do this properly — every question you have about IPL expansion, answered straight, with zero clickbait. Grab your chai.
Is IPL 2027 getting new teams?
No. Plain and simple. IPL 2027 will feature the same ten franchises you know: CSK, Mumbai Indians, RCB, KKR, Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals, Gujarat Titans, Punjab Kings, Lucknow Super Giants and Sunrisers Hyderabad. No tender has been issued, no bids invited, no cities shortlisted, nothing.
Don’t take our word for it — take the league’s. IPL chairman Arun Dhumal has addressed this directly, and his answer was that expanding from ten teams to twelve is not under consideration right now. Not “maybe,” not “we’re evaluating.” Not on the table. The reason is boring, which is usually the sign that it’s true: the schedule physically cannot fit it.
But I saw a post about 94 or 100 matches. Where did that come from?
Ah, here’s where the rumour was born — because there IS a real conversation about a bigger IPL, and the internet mangled it.
Dhumal has spoken openly about the league one day growing from its current 74 matches to as many as 94. But — and this is the part every viral post conveniently drops — he was equally clear that a jump like that is impossible inside the current calendar. The league would need a genuinely bigger window first. So the accurate headline is “IPL dreams of 94 matches if the calendar ever allows it.” The viral headline became “100 matches and new teams confirmed.” You can see how we got here.
Okay, so why can’t they just squeeze in more games?
Three reasons, and they’re all stubborn.
First, the window. The IPL runs from roughly mid-March to the end of May, wedged between international commitments on one side and the monsoon on the other. June cricket across much of India is a washout waiting to happen.
Second, double-headers. More matches in the same window means loads of two-game days, and broadcasters hate that. Afternoon starts in brutal heat pull weaker viewership, and the entire IPL money machine runs on broadcast value. Nobody’s diluting the primetime product to make a WhatsApp graphic come true.
Third, more teams makes both problems worse. Twelve franchises means dozens of extra fixtures. There’s simply nowhere to put them. As Dhumal summed it up, going from 74 games to 94 genuinely requires a bigger window — full stop.
More About IPL 2027 –
1. IPL 2027: Why the 94-Match Mega Season Isn’t Happening
2. IPL 2027 Young Stars to Watch
So when could expansion ACTUALLY happen?
Now we’re asking the right question. Circle this phrase: post-2027.
The next ICC Future Tours Programme — the giant master calendar that decides which country plays what and when — gets drafted after 2027. That negotiation is where the IPL’s real ambitions are pointed. Dhumal has noted that fan interest in some bilateral series is visibly fading, and hinted that franchise leagues could claim more of the calendar as a result.
Translation: when the new global calendar is carved up, expect the BCCI to fight for a longer IPL window. Win that fight, and suddenly 94 matches becomes possible. And once 94 matches is possible, the twelve-team conversation can genuinely begin. It’s a chain, and the first link hasn’t been forged yet.
For what it’s worth, a 94-match IPL would be a fundamentally different beast — closer to a months-long league than the two-month festival we know today. That’s exactly why the board treats the window question as the whole ballgame rather than a detail, and why nobody serious is promising dates yet.
Has the IPL added teams before? How did that go?
Twice — one disaster, one triumph, and both are instructive.
The disaster: 2011. The league jumped to ten teams with Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Pune Warriors India, and it fell apart almost immediately. Disputes over franchise guarantee payments turned ugly, and by 2012 the IPL had shrunk back to eight teams. That mess is exactly why the board now moves carefully.
The triumph: 2022. This time the BCCI did it by the book — a formal tender in August 2021 with a base price of ₹2,000 crore per franchise (for perspective, Sunrisers Hyderabad had entered for ₹850 crore back in 2012), with board officials predicting bids north of ₹3,000 crore. The winners were Gujarat Titans, backed by CVC Capital Partners, and Lucknow Super Giants, owned by Sanjiv Goenka’s group — a combined entry cost of roughly $1.6 billion. The 2022 season expanded to ten teams and 70 matches, with the sides split into two groups of five.
And in the most IPL ending imaginable, Gujarat Titans won the whole thing in their very first season. So yes — expansion, done right, absolutely works. Which is precisely why fans keep assuming round three is around the corner.
Why does this rumour refuse to die, then?
Because every individual ingredient is real. There IS on-record talk of a 94-match league. There IS a precedent of new teams arriving and instantly succeeding. There IS an obvious financial windfall — each expansion has multiplied the league’s value. And there ARE entire cities that have waited years for a franchise to call their own.
All true. And none of it adds up to a new team in 2027. The distance between “conditions exist” and “announcement made” is the exact distance between analysis and clickbait — and the graphics in your group chat live entirely on the wrong side of it.
How will we know when it’s real?
Save this checklist. Genuine expansion follows a paper trail you cannot fake. First, clarity on a longer window from the post-2027 calendar talks. Then a formal Invitation to Tender published by the BCCI itself, naming the number of teams and the base price — exactly like 2021. Then a public bidding process, new owners unveiled well before a season, and almost certainly a restructured mega auction to stock the new squads.
Zero of those steps have occurred. Until that tender document exists, every “new team confirmed” post is fan fiction with good graphic design.
Fine. So what should I actually be excited about?
Honestly? The trade market, which is currently delivering more drama than any expansion could. A governing-council-approved blockbuster has already gone through — Rishabh Pant is back at Delhi Capitals, with Kuldeep Yadav heading to Lucknow — and the biggest saga of the off-season, Hardik Pandya’s future at Mumbai Indians, has half the league circling. Add a December auction and the retention-list chaos before it, and the road to IPL 2027 is jam-packed without a single new franchise.
We’ve covered the Pant trade, the Hardik drama and the full auction preview separately on the site — start there.
And the next time that graphic lands in your group chat? Send them this article. Consider it your good deed for the day.
Everything above is accurate as of 31 July 2026. If the BCCI ever does publish a tender for new franchises, we’ll be the first to update this page — loudly.
