Here’s how much Vijay Mallya bought the RCB team in 2008

Vijay Mallya narrated a piece of story from his time as a first time team owner of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in 2008 with an interesting insight into the initial money he bought the franchise for. 

The RCB team had finally lifted their maiden IPL trophy in 2025 after a struggle of 18 years, with multiple captaincies and changes, star player retirements and so on. The fans were backing the team, wearing red and supporting through highs and lows, ebbs and flows of the team through these past seasons, only for the team to lift the trophy this year under Rajat Patidhar’s captaincy, ending the drought. 

As fans are celebrating the win of RCB, the former owner Vijay Mallya sat down for a podcast interview with entrepreneur Raj Shamani. The rare interview had some delightful insights into the early days of the Indian Premier League. 

Vijay Mallya reveals the price he gave to buy RCB

The former owner revealed his idea and vision in buying the RCB team in the 2008 auction and said that he also had eyes for buying Mumbai Indians. “I was very impressed with the pitch that Lalit Modi made to the BCCI committee about this league. He called me one day and said ok, teams are going to be auctioned. Are you going to buy it? So, I bid from three franchises, and I lost Mumbai by a very small amount of money.”

After losing two of his auctions, Mallys bought the RCB team in auction for $112 Million, approximately ₹600 – 700 Crore at the time, and was the second highest bid in the initial IPL team auction. 

The businessman fully had intentions of developing and stretching his ventures in buying the IPL team. He revealed in the podcast, “”My sole purpose behind buying RCB was to promote my whisky brand, Royal Challenge; there wasn’t any cricket love behind it.”

Mallya in sharing his vision for the team in 2025 and the picks he would have, revealed names like Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav and Rishabh Pant for the RCB lineup. 

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