The CSK owner heading into IPL 2027 is Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd (CSKCL), an unlisted public company in which the family of former BCCI president N. Srinivasan holds the controlling block. India Cements, the company that bought the franchise in 2008, no longer runs the team, and the Aditya Birla Group’s takeover of India Cements in December 2024 did not touch CSK at all.
On the money side, CSKCL made a net profit of ₹161.63 crore on total revenue of ₹636.46 crore in the year to 31 March 2026, according to its latest annual report. That is down from ₹180.94 crore of profit a year earlier, and the reason is simple. The team finished tenth in IPL 2025, and a bottom finish costs real money from the BCCI’s central pool.
This page explains who actually owns the yellow franchise, how ownership moved from India Cements to a separate company, what CSK earns season by season and what the club is worth in 2026. For everything else about next season, start with our IPL 2027 hub.
CSK owner at a glance
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Legal owner of the team | Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd (CSKCL) |
| Controlling shareholders | N. Srinivasan family through its promoter group, about 47 per cent (reported, March 2025) |
| Original buyer | India Cements, January 2008, for US$91 million |
| CSKCL incorporated | 19 December 2014 |
| Managing director and CEO | Kasi Viswanathan |
| Head coach for IPL 2027 | Zaheer Khan, named on 21 September 2026 |
| Captain in IPL 2026 | Ruturaj Gaikwad |
| FY26 total revenue | ₹636.46 crore (standalone) |
| FY26 net profit | ₹161.63 crore (standalone) |
| Brand value 2026 | US$244 million, fourth in the IPL (Houlihan Lokey) |
| IPL titles | Five, in 2010, 2011, 2018, 2021 and 2023 |
| IPL 2026 finish | Eighth, six wins from 14 matches |
Who owns CSK right now
Start with the company, because that is where the legal answer sits. The franchise rights, the players’ contracts, the sponsorship deals and the yellow brand all belong to Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd. It is a public limited company, but its shares are not listed on the NSE or BSE. They change hands in the unlisted market, which is why you will see a “CSK share price” quoted by brokers even though you cannot buy it through a normal trading app.
The Srinivasan family and the promoter group
The people in control are the Srinivasan family. CSKCL’s promoter group includes EWS Finance and Investments Pvt Ltd, N. Srinivasan, his wife Chitra Srinivasan, his daughter Rupa Gurunath (partly as trustee of two family trusts) and a few related shareholders, according to company filings reported by unlisted share research firms. EWS Finance is the single biggest holder within that group.
The promoters have steadily bought more. Their stake rose from 28.14 per cent in March 2023 to 41.65 per cent in March 2024, and reports put it at about 47.22 per cent by 31 March 2025. The rest, roughly 53 per cent, sits with public and institutional shareholders. Reports describe that public base as about one lakh shareholders, most of whom got their CSK shares because they once held India Cements stock.
So the plain answer to “who is the CSK owner” is this. CSKCL owns the team, and the Srinivasan family controls CSKCL. Srinivasan sits on the CSKCL board and is widely described as its chairman, while Rupa Gurunath is a director.
The people who run it day to day
Kasi Viswanathan, a former India Cements man who has been with the team since the first season, is managing director and CEO. The CSKCL board passed the resolution confirming him as managing director in 2024. He is the face of almost every official CSK statement, from Dhoni updates to denials of trade rumours.
How CSK ownership moved from India Cements to CSKCL
The ownership story has three chapters. There was the India Cements era, the separation forced by the courts, and the slow handover of shares to India Cements investors.
2008, India Cements buys Chennai
When the BCCI auctioned the eight original franchises in January 2008, India Cements paid US$91 million for Chennai. Only Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad went for more. India Cements got the rights for ten years, and Srinivasan, then its vice chairman and managing director, became the de facto owner.
That set up the problem that hung over CSK for seven years. Srinivasan was also a senior BCCI official and later its president. The board had changed its own rule, clause 6.2.4, to let officials hold commercial interests in the IPL and the Champions League T20.
2014 and 2015, the Supreme Court and a new company
On 22 January 2015 the Supreme Court struck down that amendment. India Cements had already incorporated Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd on 19 December 2014, and early in 2015 its board approved moving the franchise into the new company. India Cements then sold its entire holding in CSKCL to a trust called the India Cements Shareholders Trust, which was to be controlled by independent directors.
The old version of this page said CSKCL took over in 2014. That is half right. The company was born in December 2014, but the franchise only moved across after the court ruling in early 2015.
2016 and 2017, the suspension years
The same saga cost CSK two seasons. Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, a former team official, was found to have been involved in betting during IPL 2013, and the Lodha committee suspended the franchise for 2016 and 2017. Meiyappan was banned from cricket for life. CSK came back in 2018 and won the title at the first attempt, beating Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets at the Wankhede.
FY23, shares go to India Cements investors
In 2022-23 the trust distributed CSKCL shares to India Cements shareholders, both promoters and the public. That is the moment CSK became a company with tens of thousands of retail owners, and it is also when the Srinivasan family’s direct stake began to climb.
CSK ownership timeline
| Date | What changed |
|---|---|
| January 2008 | India Cements wins the Chennai franchise for US$91 million |
| 19 December 2014 | Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd incorporated |
| 22 January 2015 | Supreme Court strikes down BCCI clause 6.2.4 amendment |
| Early 2015 | Franchise moved to CSKCL, held through India Cements Shareholders Trust |
| 2016 and 2017 | CSK suspended after the Lodha committee ruling |
| 2022-23 | Trust hands CSKCL shares to India Cements shareholders |
| March 2024 | Promoter group stake reaches 41.65 per cent (reported) |
| December 2024 | UltraTech takes control of India Cements, CSK unaffected |
| March 2025 | Promoter group stake about 47 per cent (reported) |
Did the UltraTech deal change the IPL 2027 owner of CSK
No. This is the question that confused fans most in the last two years, so here are the exact facts.
UltraTech Cement, part of the Aditya Birla Group, bought 22.77 per cent of India Cements in June 2024 and then agreed to buy another 32.72 per cent from Srinivasan and his associates at ₹390 a share, a deal worth about ₹3,954 crore. The transaction was completed on 24 December 2024, giving UltraTech 55.49 per cent of India Cements. Srinivasan stepped down as CEO and managing director of India Cements the same week.
None of that touched the cricket team, because India Cements stopped owning CSK back in 2015. Kasi Viswanathan said as much in 2024, telling reporters that CSK and India Cements are different entities and that India Cements no longer controls the team.
In fact, the deal arguably strengthened the family’s grip on CSK. Srinivasan sold out of cement, and in the same period the promoter group kept adding CSKCL shares. For IPL 2027, the owner of CSK is exactly who it was in IPL 2026.
There was one more ownership story in August 2026. Unverified reports claimed MS Dhoni had asked for a stake in the franchise. Viswanathan called them completely baseless, and nothing on record suggests Dhoni owns any part of CSKCL.
How much does CSK earn, the FY26 results explained
CSKCL’s annual report for the year ended 31 March 2026 came out in early September 2026. These are the standalone numbers, which cover the IPL team.
- Total revenue was ₹636.46 crore, slightly down from ₹643.99 crore.
- Revenue from operations rose to ₹622.12 crore from ₹615.48 crore.
- Central rights income from the BCCI fell by about ₹38 crore to ₹430.43 crore, from ₹468.49 crore.
- Other income halved to ₹14.34 crore, mainly because spare cash moved from inter-corporate deposits to mutual funds.
- Net profit dropped 11 per cent to ₹161.63 crore, from ₹180.94 crore.
The company itself blamed the central rights drop on the team finishing tenth in IPL 2025, compared with fifth in IPL 2024. Higher sponsorship and other tournament income covered most of that hole, but expenses went up by about ₹17.8 crore as the company hired more full-time staff.
The group numbers look a little different. On a consolidated basis, which adds Joburg Super Kings, the US operation and the academies, FY26 total income was about ₹712 crore and profit after tax about ₹114 crore. The overseas teams are still loss making, which drags the group figure below the IPL team’s own profit.
Where CSK’s money comes from
Roughly two thirds to three quarters of CSK’s revenue comes from one cheque, the franchise’s share of the BCCI’s central pool. That pool is built from media rights and central sponsorship. The 2023 to 2027 media rights cycle sold for ₹48,075 crore, and that is why CSK’s revenue more than doubled from FY23 to FY24.
The rest comes from team sponsorship, ticketing at Chepauk, merchandise, prize money and tournament related income. A title run adds prize money and a better central rights payout. A bad season takes both away.
CSK earnings season by season
This is the table the other CSK owner pages do not have. Each financial year below is matched to the IPL season it actually paid for, because the IPL runs from late March to early June, so a season’s money lands in the financial year that starts in April. All figures are CSKCL standalone, in crore rupees, as reported from the company’s annual reports. FY21 is left out because we could not verify the standalone central rights figure for that year.
| Financial year | IPL season | CSK finish | Central rights (₹ cr) | Net profit (₹ cr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY19 | 2018 | Champions | 294 | 111 |
| FY20 | 2019 | Runners-up | 240 | 50 |
| FY22 | 2021 | Champions | 242 | 32 |
| FY23 | 2022 | Ninth | 191.52 | 52 |
| FY24 | 2023 | Champions | 479.21 | 229.20 |
| FY25 | 2024 | Fifth | 468.49 | 180.94 |
| FY26 | 2025 | Tenth | 430.43 | 161.63 |
Now the same years with two numbers we worked out ourselves, how dependent CSK is on the BCCI cheque and how much of each rupee it keeps as profit.
| Financial year | Total revenue (₹ cr) | Central rights share of revenue | Net profit margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY19 | 410 | 71.7% | 27.1% |
| FY20 | 350 | 68.6% | 14.3% |
| FY22 | 349 | 69.3% | 9.2% |
| FY23 | 292.34 | 65.5% | 17.8% |
| FY24 | 676.40 | 70.8% | 33.9% |
| FY25 | 643.99 | 72.7% | 28.1% |
| FY26 | 636.46 | 67.6% | 25.4% |
What the tables tell you
Three things jump out.
The media rights cycle matters far more than trophies. CSK won the title in 2021 and still posted only ₹32 crore of profit in FY22, its weakest year in the table. Two years later, after the new rights deal kicked in, a title season produced ₹229.20 crore. Same club, same success, seven times the profit.
Finishing position now has a visible price. Between FY24 and FY26, CSK went from champions to fifth to tenth, and central rights income fell by almost ₹49 crore. Part of that is prize money and part is the merit-linked slice of the central pool. Either way, the drop from fifth to tenth alone cost about ₹38 crore, the club’s own annual report says.
CSK is slowly becoming less dependent on the BCCI. The central rights share fell to 67.6 per cent in FY26, its lowest since FY23, because sponsorship and tournament income grew even in a poor season. That is the commercial team doing its job while the cricket team struggled.
One caution. FY26 does not yet include IPL 2026, where CSK finished eighth. That season’s money shows up in FY27, which will be reported around September 2027. An eighth place finish should be slightly better than tenth for the central pool, so we expect FY27 central rights income to hold steady or rise a little, but that is a projection, not a reported figure.
What is CSK worth in 2026
There are two ways to answer this, and they give very different numbers.
Brand value
Houlihan Lokey’s 2026 IPL brand valuation study put CSK’s brand value at US$244 million, up 3.8 per cent. For the first time, CSK ranked fourth, behind Royal Challengers Bengaluru at US$312 million, Mumbai Indians at US$264 million and Kolkata Knight Riders at US$245 million. The study linked CSK’s slower growth to two poor seasons in a row and Dhoni’s shrinking role on the field.
That is a big fall from where CSK stood a few years ago. The franchise topped the brand charts for more than three years before RCB overtook it in 2025, when CSK came in at US$235 million and third. The old version of this page quoted a 2019 brand value of ₹678 crore. That figure belongs in the history books now.
Company value
Brand value only measures the name. The value of the whole business is much higher. CSKCL has about 37.94 crore shares in issue. Unlisted dealers were quoting indicative prices between roughly ₹230 and ₹280 per share in 2026, which puts the implied market value of the company somewhere between about ₹8,700 crore and ₹10,600 crore. That is our own calculation from dealer quotes, and unlisted prices move a lot.
The bigger signal came from the sale market. RCB changed hands in 2026 at a reported valuation of US$1.78 billion, and Rajasthan Royals at a reported US$1.65 billion to the Mittal family and Adar Poonawalla. In March 2026, Business Today reported that CSK’s unlisted shares had doubled in a year and still traded at about a 30 per cent discount to those deals. One unlisted market founder argued CSK’s fair value should be close to ₹18,000 crore. That is one dealer’s opinion, not a valuation from the company.
The IPL itself was valued at US$20.6 billion as a business in the same Houlihan Lokey study.
The Super Kings business beyond Chennai
The CSK owner is no longer just an IPL team. CSKCL now runs a small global group under the Super Kings name.
Joburg Super Kings
CSKCL owns Joburg Super Kings in South Africa’s SA20, based at the Wanderers. It is growing revenue but still losing money. In FY25 it earned ₹45.3 crore and lost ₹32.8 crore, mainly because of player costs.
Texas Super Kings
In Major League Cricket in the United States, CSKCL’s American arm holds 55.5 per cent of Texas Super Kings, who play at Grand Prairie Stadium near Dallas. That team also lost money in its first season under the group’s books.
Super Kings Academy
Superking Ventures Pvt Ltd runs the Super Kings Academy, with centres in Chennai and Salem and a branch in Sydney. It turned a profit of ₹5.5 crore in FY25 on revenue of ₹18.1 crore. It is small, but it is the one part of the overseas and academy business that already pays for itself.
For fans the main point is this. The IPL team funds everything else. The Chennai franchise’s profit is what keeps Joburg and Texas going while they build.
Who runs CSK for IPL 2027
Ownership is settled. The cricket side is not, and the next few weeks will shape the team the owners put out in 2027.
New coach, same CEO
Stephen Fleming left after an 18 year association with the franchise, and CSK named Zaheer Khan as head coach for IPL 2027 on 21 September 2026. Viswanathan said Dhoni was involved in that decision, which tells you how the club still works. The owners back the cricket people, and the cricket people listen to Dhoni.
Captain and the Dhoni question
Ruturaj Gaikwad led CSK in IPL 2026. Dhoni did not play a single match that season because of calf, hamstring and thumb problems. As of October 2026, Viswanathan’s line is that Dhoni has not told the club he will stop playing, so CSK is waiting. Former CSK batter S. Badrinath said in September that Dhoni has told him he will not play as an impact player in 2027. That is Badrinath’s account and has not been confirmed by CSK.
The club already has a ready-made keeper in Sanju Samson, who arrived from Rajasthan Royals before IPL 2026 in the trade that sent Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran the other way.
Trades, retentions and the auction
CSK has been linked with Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya, but Viswanathan has denied formal talks, and R. Ashwin said on 18 October that a Chennai move looks like a long shot, with Rajasthan Royals more likely. No CSK trade for 2027 has been confirmed. You can follow every confirmed deal in our IPL 2027 trade window tracker.
Reports also suggest CSK will cut expensive signings from the last auction who did not deliver in 2026, including Prashant Veer, bought for ₹14.20 crore. The retention deadline has been reported as 15 November 2026, but the BCCI has not confirmed the full schedule. Our IPL retained players list will carry CSK’s official list once it is out, and the IPL auction guide will cover the purse each team takes into the sale.
CSK’s recent record
| Season | Finish | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Champions | Fifth title, beat Gujarat Titans in the final |
| 2024 | Fifth | Missed the playoffs narrowly |
| 2025 | Tenth | Worst finish in franchise history |
| 2026 | Eighth | Six wins from 14, Dhoni missed the season |
Three seasons without a playoff place is new territory for this club. Before 2024, CSK had missed the knockouts only twice in 14 seasons, in 2020 and 2022.
iSportsLeague take
This is our view, not a reported fact.
The Srinivasan family will still own CSK in 2030, and probably well beyond. Every move since 2023 points the same way. The family sold its cement business and kept buying cricket shares. Promoter holding went from 28 per cent to about 47 per cent in two years. That is not an owner looking for an exit, and with RCB and RR selling at US$1.65 billion and above, there is no financial pressure to sell either.
The real risk to CSK’s value is on the field, and it is not huge yet. Our tables show the club gave up about ₹49 crore of central rights income in two years as it fell down the table, while sponsorship held up. One more bottom-half finish would cost money, but it would not hurt the business badly. What would hurt is a long slide in brand value after Dhoni goes, and the 2026 Houlihan Lokey study has already flagged that.
Our prediction is that CSK’s profit in FY27 lands close to FY26, somewhere in the ₹150 crore to ₹175 crore range, because an eighth place finish in 2026 is a small step up from tenth. The bigger test is the media rights cycle after 2027. If the next deal comes in higher, CSK’s numbers jump again, as they did in FY24, whatever happens at Chepauk. If it comes in flat, the owners will need Zaheer Khan to get CSK back into the top four to keep the money growing.
We also think an IPO is unlikely in the next two or three years. A family that has spent three years increasing its stake is not about to dilute it on the stock market.
FAQ on the CSK owner
Who is the owner of CSK in 2027
Chennai Super Kings is owned by Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd, an unlisted public company. The family of N. Srinivasan controls it through a promoter group that held about 47 per cent as of March 2025, according to reports based on company filings. No change of owner has been announced for IPL 2027.
Is India Cements still the owner of CSK
No. India Cements owned the franchise from 2008 until early 2015, when it moved into CSKCL after the Supreme Court ruling on clause 6.2.4. India Cements is now controlled by UltraTech Cement, but that deal had no effect on CSK.
Does Mukesh Ambani or the Aditya Birla Group own CSK
No. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance group owns Mumbai Indians, not CSK. The Aditya Birla Group’s UltraTech Cement bought India Cements, the team’s original owner, but CSK had already been separated from India Cements years earlier.
Does MS Dhoni own a stake in CSK
There is no record of Dhoni owning any part of CSKCL. In August 2026, unverified reports claimed he had asked for a stake, and CEO Kasi Viswanathan called them completely baseless. Dhoni remains on the playing roster, and the club says his future is his call.
How much does CSK earn in a year
In FY26, the year to 31 March 2026, CSKCL reported total revenue of ₹636.46 crore and a net profit of ₹161.63 crore on a standalone basis. Its best year so far was FY24, when profit hit ₹229.20 crore after the 2023 title win. Most of the money comes from the BCCI’s central media rights pool.
What is the net worth of CSK
CSK’s brand alone was valued at US$244 million in 2026 by Houlihan Lokey. The whole company is worth much more. Based on unlisted share prices of roughly ₹230 to ₹280 in 2026, the implied value is between about ₹8,700 crore and ₹10,600 crore, by our own calculation.
Can I buy CSK shares
CSK shares are not listed on any stock exchange, but they are traded in the unlisted market through dealers and platforms that handle pre-IPO shares. Prices are indicative and can swing sharply, and there is no confirmed plan for an IPO. Treat it as a high-risk investment and speak to a registered adviser first.
Who is the CEO of CSK
Kasi Viswanathan is the managing director and CEO of Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd. He has been with the franchise since its first season in 2008 and handles most of its public statements.
Last updated 21 October 2026
