Tollywood superstar Nagarjuna has become the owner of the prestigious i1 Super Series Hyderabad team. The i1 Super Series, India’s first motorsports league is single-make, single-seater sports car racing series.
Nagarjuna is the second celebrity from Telugu film industry to own a sports league after Ram Charan Tej, who bought the Hyderabad’s polo team earlier. The initial investment for Nag is expected to be in the range of Rs 30-35 crore.
The Bangalore team of i1 Series was purchased by Hotelier Arjun Baljee, founder of the Peppermint Hotels and along with Rudra Dalmia, a Partner in RD Capital, an Investment Advisory and Consulting Firm in Delhi.
The racing league already had two franchises with Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan taking on Mumbai franchise and Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri, the Delhi franchise.
The i1 Super Series, modelled on the IPL-style city-based franchisee format, will have nine teams representing nine different cities from across the country with each team having a driver of Indian origin and an international driver per car, marking a new dimension to Indian Motorsports.
The Series, promoted by Machdar Motorsport, owned by Anjana Reddy, will consist of 12 races with nine teams representing different Indian cities. The inaugural i1 Super Series season will begin in January 2012 and be held in India, UAE, Malaysia, Bahrain and Qatar. The teams will compete for a USD 2 million prize.
Each team owner will have to put up an initial investment of Rs 22.5 crore ($ 5 million) with an additional investment of $ two million (Rs 9 crore) in the first year and Rs 4.5 crore in the subsequent years.
Related Post
