Abram Glazer is the man behind Manchester United’s owner’s bid to add Royal Challengers Bengaluru or Rajasthan Royals to his collection of sports teams
Abram Glaser (left) looking to buy IPL franchise (Image: 2025 Jean Catuffe)
The Glazer family is once again looking to buy an Indian Premier League (IPL) team, with both Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals in their sights. The Glazer family already owns one T20 franchise and are now reportedly vying for an even bigger fish.
Abram Glazer is one of the owners of Manchester United and the NFL franchise Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but he also has business interests in cricket. Glazer, who owns Desert Vipers, one of the UAE’s ILT20 tournament franchises, through his company Lancer Capital, has long been keen to enter the Indian market.
He made unsuccessful bids for two IPL expansion franchises which became Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans in 2021. But United’s owner is undeterred and has now made bids for both RCB and Royals.
According to State of Play, the Glazers have submitted an offer of around $1.8 billion (£1.32 billion) to buy Bengaluru, who are currently the IPL champions in both the men’s and women’s competitions. The figure, submitted through New Orleans-based Lancer Capital, makes the company one of the highest bidders among nine competitors.
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They are also moving to buy Rajasthan and the process is a step further than Bengaluru, with the second round approaching. If successful, the Glazer family may have to choose between two franchises, as Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) rules do not allow for multi-franchise ownership.
Cricket Monthly reported that the Glazers’ bid for the Ahmedabad and Lucknow franchises in 2021 was the lowest among all the candidates. The RP Sanjiv Goenka Group submitted an offer of over 686 million pounds to buy the Lucknow team, while the Titans were acquired by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for 541 million pounds.
The IPL is going from strength to strength commercially as the world’s biggest and most profitable T20 league, and the Glazers seem keen not to miss out this time.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru win maiden IPL in 2025 (Image: Pankaj Nangia/Getty Images)
It was also reported that Abram Glazer, the family member most keen to get into cricket, wanted to leverage the Manchester United brand in the sport. Sheikh Mansour bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the son of Dubai’s ruler, tweeted in March 2022 that he had met with Abram to discuss “the January 2023 launch of the UAE T20 Cricket League featuring the Manchester United cricket team and other teams.”
Due to copyright issues, the idea never materialized, but the Glazer family was undaunted in pursuing cricket as a vehicle. The IPL move is not the only move reportedly being considered in India, with Indian cricket legend Sourav Ganguly revealing that the Glazers were in talks to buy Indian Super League side East Bengal in 2022.
The Glazer family has owned United since 2005, but for much of that time they were extremely unpopular. They sold a 26.2 per cent stake to Sir Jim Ratcliffe for £1.3bn in February 2024 and the British petrochemical billionaire is now in charge of the day-to-day running of the Premier League side.
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