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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Gilchrist is vice-captain of Deccan Chargers in IPL


It's official now. Indian Premier League (IPL) Team Hyderabad were the first to list their team after the auction, during which they had played it smart with skipper VVS Laxman sacrificing his icon status in order to bag marquee names like Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds. Not to mention Scott Styris, Shahid Afridi and Chaminda Vaas.

The team was officially unveiled as the Deccan Chargers. They will sport a tagline too: the Unstoppables. A charging bull - signifying strength, power and aggression - will adorn the logo while red and gold will be the team colours.

"We've chosen red and gold because the former signifies boldness and aggression, while the latter is a symbol of divinity and fortune," said J Krishnan, CEO, Team Hyderabad.

None of the overseas players made it to the official launch but there was a video post of the Chargers' vice-captain Gilchrist. "I've got to know that I'm the vice-captain of the team very recently, but trust me when I say there will be no boundaries between the players," said the recently-retired Aussie swashbuckler.

Deccan Chargers: VVS Laxman (capt), Adam Gilchrist (VC), Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs, Shahid Afridi, Chamara Silva, Chaminda Vaas, Scott Styris, Nuwan Zoysa, Rohit Sharma, RP Singh, Arjun Yadav, Pragyan Ojha, DB Ravi Teja, D Kalyankrishna, P Vijay Kumar, Venugopala Rao, N Sarvesh Kumar, Sanjay Bangar and Haladhar Das.

Head coach: Robin Singh. Asst coach: Kanwaljit Singh. Cricket managers: Shishir Hattangadi and Vijay Mohan Raj.

Countries given IPL player veto

Dubai: An agreement for countries to be given a right of veto over their players appearing in IPL has been concluded between the ICC and Indian cricket chiefs.

The ICC, in a statement issued after a two-day board meeting at its Dubai headquarters said nation-versus-nation contests "must always be given the highest possible priority".

To that end, it had agreed a standard-form contract with the BCCI, the owner of the IPL, which would give countries absolute discretion to lodge an objection to a player from its country playing in the IPL.

This would be respected by the IPL, with the player in question not selected by his franchise. It added that this objection could be lodged up to two years after that player's retirement and that members' "bilateral commitments" (e.g. Tests and limited overs internationals) would take precedence over IPL fixtures.

Seven IPL matches at Kotla

New Delhi: DDCA will stage seven IPL matches from April 19. DDCA has decided to invite all former Test cricketers and current Test and first class cricketers to watch all the IPL matches at Delhi, an official release said.

Itinerary: April 19: Delhi vs Jaipur; April 30: Delhi vs Bangalore; May 8: Delhi vs Chennai; May 15: Delhi vs Hyderabad; May 17: Delhi vs Mohali; May 22: Delhi vs Kolkata; May 24: Delhi vs Mumbai.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Royal Challengers: Dravid To Shake a Leg

Rahul Dravid will exhibit his hitherto unknown dancing skills. Rahul, Zaheer Khan and Virat Kohli the captain of the under-19 world cup winning team will all be featured in the music video to be directed by Sanjay Gupta - producer/director of hindi movies.

Allan Amin will be the action director for the shoot. Allan shot to fame with his stunts sequences in Dhoom.

DLF-IPL: Pepsi to be the Official Drink

Pepsi Cola has signed up an deal with the IPL to be the official and only drink of the IPL tournament. Pepsi paid $12.5 million dollars to become the exclusive drink of the 8 teams in the fray.

The sponsor money will be divided among the 8 teams

IPL Delhi: Delhi Daredevils Is A Well Balanced Team

Virendra Sehwag was disappointed when they could not bag star bowler Ishant Sharma. Ishant the bean pole fast bowler from Delhi was bought by Karnataka for a whopping $950,000 dollars. The Delhi Daredevils did not have that kind of money to buy Ishant but are very happy with the team they have got.

Sehwag said that the team is well balanced with the right mix of good batsman, bowlers. They also have the right mix of youth and experience. He said of the all the IPL team Delhi had the best fielding side.

The Delhi Daredevils boasts of the New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori and Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik.

Indian players in the team include Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Manoj Tiwary, Shikhar Dhawan, Mithun Manhas, Rajat Bhatia, Pradeep Sangwan, Mayank Tehlan, Yo Mahesh and Amit Mishra.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

The IPL has to be globally governed'


"The IPL should fit in with the rest of the cricket and not disrupt it. The governing body has to be seen as governing and you can't have one member state just going off at a complete tangent, because it disrupts everything else. It may be early days and we may find out where the IPL fits into the global scheme of things. But the IPL will isolate the vulnerable countries." Sanjay Manjrekar, Ian Chappell and David Lloyd analyse the impact of the IPL on world cricket

Tickets for IPL matches

It seems Ticketpro will be handling all the ticketing for the IPL. Not only there will be online booking of tickets, but there will be booking through mobile phones as well.

Let’s see how much this system will be transparent. With the amount of money involved in the league one can expect a lot nexus between franchise, sponsors, cricket association etc. Already there was a conflict between Kolkata franchise and Cricket Association of Bengal(CAB) regarding percentage of sharing of tickets for IPL matches at Eden Gardens. Similar conflicts can be expected at other venues also.

One more issue, how much the tickets will be priced. Will there be pricing based on demand and supply model similar airline ticketing system ? Let’s wait and watch. I have already heard many rumours that the minimum price of the ticket will be around 5000 INR ! Will tickets at all the venues be priced the same? Or will it be that tickets in Bangalore will be more expensive than in Jaipur (Since bored software engineers are more likely to pay higher prices to watch the matches).

The pricing of the tickets is very important, as the organizers have to make sure that the tickets are cheap enough for stadiums to be full to make the matches exciting, but expensive enough to make some profits. There are going to be 8 matches in a short amount of time, and this is very different from the usual routine of 1-2 ODI matches every 2 years. Lets see what the BCCI and it’s associates make of this opportunity.

IPL likely to hold round 3 of auctions

After the just concluded round 2 of auctioning off players, it looks like the BCCI is also going to hold round 3 of the auctions. Now that the IPL has gained so much hype and popularity already, many foreign players are ditching their home cricket boards to take part in the IPL. Another reason could be that Australia’s tour of Pakistan has been cancelled, and that may make some new players available for the IPL suddenly from both Australia and Pakistan. The England Cricket board also has been showing signs of weakness, issues No Objection Certificates to some players that will let them play in the IPL.

Why is this important? Well, some teams have exausted their $5 million limit for contracting players, so this may be the time to pick up some good players at a discount for the other teams that have not fully stocked up. There may be some very good pickings in this round.

Karmayudh ya Dhanyudh ?

The IPL cricketing extravaganza will see eight teams representing different cities slug it out in the Twenty20 format. The teams are franchisees which are owned by the biggest names in corporate sector and Bollywood, but what’s more interesting is how the money is going to flow in this mega-event!

Let’s have a look at revenues and expenses of this billion dollar league.

*BCCI’s share: The winning bidders will immediately have to pay only 10 per cent of the price they offered. For example Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Group has to pay a little over Rs 44 crore for the first year. But they have to make similar payments for the next 10 years.

*TV rights: The BCCI will also get TV rights money. The sum is Rs 4200 crore put up by Sony and World Sports Group. It is to be paid over 10 years.

*BCCI’s expenses: The main expense is raising prize money and that will be 16 per cent of the TV rights.

*Franchisees’ expenses: Apart from the winning bid, the franchisees will further bid for at least 16 players, whose minimum salary will be approximatrely Rs 20 lakh per season.They will also have to pay for training, coaches, support staff and their own promotions.

*Franchisees’ revenue: The Board keep 20 per cent of the money raised from TV rights every year and another 16 per cent kept aside. The remaining 64 per cent is distributed among the eight franchisees as their income. They can also raise revenue from embossing logos on T-shirts, but not the principal naming rights.

These large volume of the money indicate that the real winner (read happy) will be the franchise which makes the highest profit and may not be the team which wins the actual cricket battle, similar to football leagues in which Manchester United and Real Madrid are successful clubs because they make lot of profit. Cricket is probably, but not rightly, going to be in the sideline.

IIMA student hired to run Delhi Daredevils


The MBA folks have always got the best and the most lucrative jobs in finance and consulting, but this is a new trend. The Delhi Daredevils team, run by the infrastructure company GMR, has hired an IIM A grad to be the Assistant Vice-President (Operations) for the team, for a reported pay package of ~30 Lacs.

Colonel Vinod Bisht, after spending 2 decades in the armed forces joined IIM A to switch into a civilian career, and is also a self-admitted cricket fan. This job probably is probably the dream job for him, and he admits he’s excited

This is great news. The spread of professionally managed cricket teams can only be good, and will go a long way to remove the bureaucratic mess that the state of cricket in India was.

The winning team will receive $3 million and price of u-19 players by BCCI

New Delhi: The Indian cricket board will determine the Indian Premier League (IPL) price of the under-19 players after the World Cup now on in Malaysia so that they could concentrate on the tournament, a top board official said Sunday.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has told the under-19 players to stop immediately negotiating with the eight IPL franchisees as it was taking their focus away from the game.

'We have told the youngsters playing in Malaysia to stop negotiating their price with the franchisees and concentrate on the game. After the tournament, the BCCI will determine their price tags,' IPL governing council member Rajeev Shukla told IANS.

'The players were negotiating with the franchisees and this was distracting them during the tournament. So to put a stop to all this, the BCCI has decided that it will determine their IPL price after the tournament,' he pointed out.

The BCCI has also made it clear that no junior player would move out of his respective areas.

'All under-19 players will only be able to play for their catchment areas,' said Shukla, who is also secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association.

The teams and their catchments areas are: Mumbai (Mumbai, Maharashtra and Vidarbha); Bangalore (Karnataka, Goa and Services); Chennai (Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Railways); Kolkata (Bengal, Jharkhand, Assam, Tripura and Sikkim); Hyderabad (Hyderabad, Andhra and Orissa); Delhi (Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh); Mohali (Haryana, Punjab, Himachal and Jammu and Kashmir); and Jaipur (Rajasthan, Gujarat, Baroda and Saurashtra).

Shukla disclosed that with loads of money coming into play at the IPL, some youngsters with the senior Indian team in Australia were also getting distracted.

'One player is said to have signed three contracts. He was cleverly bargaining by showing the previous contract to rival franchisees,' he said.

Each of the eight teams is allowed to register a maximum of eight foreign players, but only four can play in any match. The XII for each match will comprise four of the BCCI-contracted players, four Ranji Trophy players/under-22 players/u-19 players, besides the four overseas players.

The franchisees spent a cumulative $718 million to buy the eight teams. They were Mukesh Ambani (Mumbai), Vijay Mallya (Bangalore), Shah Rukh Khan (Kolkata), Preity Zinta (Mohali), Emerging Media (Jaipur), Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad), India Cements (Chennai) and GMR Group (Delhi).

It will be a 44-day tournament this year. The first game between Bangalore and Kolkata will be played under floodlights at Bangalore's M. Chinnaswamy Stadium April 18.

The winning team will receive $3 million.

British football inspired Shah Rukh to think of owning a team


Kolkata: Five years ago Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan was watching a football match in London when the idea of owning a team crossed his mind. Shah Rukh realised that dream - though in cricket, not football - when he bought the Kolkata franchise of the Indian Premier League.

'I was watching English Premier League (EPL) in London when I went for a spinal cord surgery there. I thought if something like this could be started in football or hockey in India. So, when the IPL happened, I decided to join it,' Shah Rukh, who was in the city Tuesday to launch his Kolkata Knight Riders team, told IANS.

In February 2003, Shah Rukh underwent surgery on his spine in London's Wellington Hospital and since then, he has been visiting the city at regular intervals.

On his philosophy of work ethic, Shah Rukh said: 'My life has three simple tenets - work hard, don't think bad about others, and be honest to yourself.

'The point is, don't be caught up in small things, go for success. If you are a player, be like Roger Federer, and if you are an actor be like Amitabh Bachchan.'

Asked whether his son Aryan's love for the game is also one of the reasons to own a cricket team, he said: 'It's not only for Aryan. It's for the youth of the country. I do a lot of social work, but I want to do something for sports. I want Knight Riders to be an inspiration for the youngsters.'

Shah Rukh said if he had taken up cricket as a career, he would have been a wicketkeeper. 'I was a wicketkeeper when I used to play cricket.'

King Khan also went down memory lane and recalled the first cricket match he saw, an India-Pakistan encounter in 1979. 'My mother was a magistrate and she got tickets for us to watch that match at Ferozshah Kotla, in which Imran Khan made 32.'

On Preity Zinta hoping to see the Chandigarh and Kolkata teams in the final, he said: 'I wish her all the best and hope what she says comes true. But I will not make such tall claims. I hope we play good, entertaining, robust cricket and in the process if we reach the final, there is nothing like it.'

Pomerbasch is all excited about gaining experience from IPL

New Delhi: Luke Pomersbach is not a familiar name in Indian cricket circles till he was snapped up for $54,000 by the Mohali team in the Indian Premier League (IPL) second auction in Mumbai Tuesday.

The young Australian is all keyed up at the thought of sharing the dressing room with the likes of Brett Lee, Simon Katich, James Hopes, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan.

To the delight of the 23-year-old left-hand batsman, his coach of the Western Australian team, Tom Moody, is also the coach of the Mohali team.

'I got the good news last night from Tom. It's a great feeling, it's just good to be over there, anything else is a bonus,' an excited Pomersbach told the Cricket Australia website Wednesday.

'It's an honour to be with such good cricketers, two of the best cricketers in the world in Brett Lee and Sangakkara. It's great to mix with them.

'I can't wait to have a chat with those guys. I'm going to talk to them as much as I can and try to learn whatever I can from them,' he added.

However, what is troubling Pomersbach is his realistic chance of making it to the eleven as the team boasts of so many big names of world cricket.

'I think you are allowed only four overseas players in a game, so it's going to be hard to get a game . . . but if I can get a game or two I'll be happy,' he said.

On visiting India, he said: 'I went to India last season with the academy and I think it's a great place. It's a different place altogether and I'm looking forward to the visit.'

Pomersbach reached the pinnacle of his fledgling career when he received a call up for national Twenty20 side to play New Zealand last December after Brad Hodge injured his back before the game.

'I had a decent year and got a couple of rewards along the way...to get the green and gold on me was a great experience,' Pomersbach said.

PL: Who went where in second auction

Mumbai, March 11: Following is the list of players picked up Tuesday in the second auction for Indian Premier League (IPL) teams (City/Team/Player):

Delhi Daredevils: Pradeep Sangwan (India), Brett Geeves (Tasmania, Australia)

Kolkata Knight Riders: Salman Butt and Mohammad Hafeez (Pakistan), Siddarth Kaul and Iqbal Abdulla (India)

Mohali: James Hopes and Luke Pomersbach (Australia), Tanmay Srivastava and Ajitesh Argal (India), Kyle Mills (New Zealand)

Rajasthan Royals: Dimitri Mascarenhas (England), Morne Morkel (South Africa), Shane Watson (Australia), Sohail Tanveer (Pakistan), Taruwar Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja (India)

Royal Challengers (Bangalore): Misbah ul Haq (Pakistan), Abbur Razzak (Bangladesh), Virat Kohli and Srivatsa Goswami (India), Ross Taylor (New Zealand)

Mumbai Indians: Ashwell Prince (South Africa), Saurabh Tiwary and Manish Pandey (India)

Chennai: Napoleon Einstein, Abhinav Mukund and Viraj Kadbe (India)

Hyderabad did not pick any player in the second auction.

IPL: Under-19 captain Virat Kohli goes to Bangalore

Mumbai : The Under-19 World Cup winning captain, Virat Kohli, has been bought by Bangalore, as a number of members of the Indian youth team that won the title in Malaysia went under the hammer in the second round of Indian Premier League auction here Tuesday.

Other Under-19 players who were picked by various franchises included left-arm seamer Pradeep Sangwan by Delhi, wicketkeeper Shreevats Goswami by Bangalore, Taruwar Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja by Jaipur, Sidharth Kaul and Iqbal Abdulla by Kolkata and Tanmay Srivastava and Ajitesh Argal by Mohali.

Among the foreigners the most prominent name was Misbah-ul-Haq, the Pakistan batsman, who was picked up by Bangalore Royal Challengers, who will also have Bangladesh left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak in the team.

The first England player to be auctioned, all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas, was bought by Jaipur's Rajasthan Royals, who have also signed up South African fast bowler Morne Morkel, Australian all-rounder Shane Watson and Pakistan left-arm fast bowler Sohail Tanvir.

Shah Rukh Khan-owned Kolkata Knight Riders bought Pakistanis Salman Butt and Mohammad Hafeez, while Mohali picked up Australians James Hopes and Luke Pomersbach.

Lanka's Australian physio joining IPL

Mumbai: Not only Indian team but Mahela Jayawardane's Sri Lankan team will need to look out for a new physio after the current West Indies tour, it is learnt here.

According to the high level sources in Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), their young national physio Tommy Simsek has put his papers before flying out with the team to West Indies as his last assignment. "He has forwarded his resignation to join the IPL," a source said.

In Sri Lanka's support staff Simsek is the most experienced having joined them in June 2005 when Tom Moody took over as coach. While the rest of the overseas staff has left or not been retained Simsek have more or less filled the vacuum created by Sri Lanka's popular physiotherapist Alex Kountouri.

Born in Turkey, but living in Melbourne, Simsek is renowned for his sprints between dressing room and the pitch and back to base (he has been clocked at 11.3 secs in the 100 m dash).

Holds a Masters Degree in Sports Physiotherapy and has worked with Australian professional rugby and soccer teams in Melbourne before undertaking his present job with a cricket team for the first time.

He also spent some time at the Australian Institute of Sport and worked with a soccer team in Melbourne. His Australian wife is also a physiotherapist, and they have two sons.

"He will be attached with the Chennai team in IPL."

The serious aspect of Simsek's job is to do a full assessment of every player who comes into the national team and write up a rehabilitation program which the players must fine tune.

The coach Trevor Bayliss may be asked to suggest few names for the physio's post.

ISHANT 2 CNN-IBN


Mumbai: Fast bowler Ishant Sharma is fit and raring to play along with Ricky Ponting for the Kolkata Knight Riders and has another reason to be glad that he's part of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan's team.

Roma Khanna: Indian physio John Gloster, in his report, had said you needed rest. How are you feeling right now?

Ishant Sharma: I'm feeling better right now. My finger is okay, so is everything else. I'm ready to play cricket now.

Roma Khanna: You are going to play for the Kolkata Knight Riders. Do you think part of the reason Shah Rukh bought you was because Ricky Ponting was already there. He didn't want his batsmen getting out.

Ishant Sharma: No. I think Ricky Ponting is a good batsman, everyone knows about how good he is. It only means good experience for me if he is playing with me. He will share his knowledge with me, sharing his experience with me. So it's a good experience for me.

Roma Khanna: Do you think it's going to be different from playing in Australia where you had a bit of assistance and you performed well. Now you are playing at home, but there will be a lot of pressure on Ishant Sharma to repeat the performances that he gave in Australia?

Ishant Sharma: I think it depends on how we handle it. If we can take it in a positive way it can be good for us. It will motivate the people who are expecting us to perform. I'm thinking in a positive way and I hope it helps.

Roma Khanna: Do you think Shah Rukh will also help you to meet Katrina Kaif?

Ishant Sharma: I think so (laughs).

Home » News

Melbourne: Australia's Test players are set to be allowed to play in the lucrative Indian Premier League before preparing at home for the May tour to the West Indies, the players' union said Thursday.

The Australian Cricketers Association said Cricket Australia has indicated there will be no objection to Test stars Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee, Andrew Symonds, Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey playing in the first 14-16 days of the six-week IPL tournament, which starts on April 18.

They will then be required back home for a team camp before the touring party sets off for the West Indies in the second week of May.

"I don't think there will be a problem," said ACA chief executive Paul Marsh. "Certainly based on our discussions with Cricket Australia to date I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be able to play in the IPL, assuming that there are no other commitments to Cricket Australia," he said.

CA spokesman Peter Young said the governing body was in the process of going through details and options, which include the possibility of practice matches before the West Indies tour.

"Our first priority is to ensure the team has appropriate preparation for the tour of the West Indies," he said.

Australia's opening tour match in the West Indies is scheduled to start on May 16 ahead of the opening Test in Kingston, Jamaica, on May 22.

This week's cancellation of the tour to Pakistan over security concerns opens a window in a crowded international schedule, allowing some Australian players to fulfill around one-third of their IPL contracts and collect pro rata payments.

Symonds is the highest paid Australian player, with a contract of $1.35 million for a full season. Lee is on $900,000, Ponting $400,000, Hayden $375,000 and Hussey $350,000.

Brabourne out of race to stage IPL games

Mumbai: Brabourne Stadium will not be able to host any of the IPL matches. This was revealed by the CCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur.

"We were very keen to host the matches but the arrangements couls not be worked out with the IPL franchisee-Reliance Ltd". "The discussions between the parties failed over the quota arrangements", he said.

"They wanted the complete Club House and the Members' Children Enclosure at their disposal which would have deprived our members to watch the match from their own club".

"The President and Executive Committee of the Club had several meetings to deliberate on this issue and eventually as per the Bye-Laws, we could not have asked our members to stay away for watching the matches". And this has resulted in their informing us that the IPL matches can not be held at CCI", club's President Raj Singh Dungarpur and vice president Badal Mittal said.

In fact, Mukesh Ambani had expressed his desire to host the final at this venue but the settlement could not be reached, it is learnt.

Now the IPL franchise has two options to host few matches — the DY Patil Stadium and Mumbai Cricket Association's Wankhede Stadium.

However, in view of the 2011 World Cup in India (and other sub-continents), Wankhede Stadium will need to postpone the commencement of renovation of the entire stadium till the inagural IPL Twenty20 matches are over.

DLFIPL: Gets A New Associate Sponsor

Car maker Hyundai has signed an exclusive advertising deal with Sony to telecast its ads during the IPL series. After Vodafone last week, Hyundai becomes the second associate sponsor to make a deal SET.

Though the deal amount was not mentioned it is estimated to be in range of 23 crores rupees.

With this agreement Hyundai will be the only automobile maker to be advertised during the 44 day tournament.

Kolkata Knight Riders: SRK says without sponsors all these won’t be possible.

SRK said that without the support of sponsors of his team that include Belmont, Nokia, HDIL and Tag Heur it would be impossible for his company to have gone ahead with the IPL Kolkata - Kolkata Knight Riders team building, launching and promoting it.

He said as an actor he does not make that kind of money. Whereas the other teams like Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils, IPL Hyderabad were all owned by big companies that had lot of financial backing.

Kolkata on the other hand is backed by a few individuals who don’t have that kind of money power said Khan. Winning and losing is part of the game but we will play to win said Badshah of Bollywood.

Bangalore Royal Challengers To Promote UB brands

Bangalore Royal Challengers is currently looking at promoting the United Breweries group brands, Mallaya said. They want to connect with the youth of India.

The team includes Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble the local boys, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Misbah-ul-Haq, Dale Steyn, Zaheer Khan, Nathan Bracken, Jacques Kallis, Cameron White and Mark Boucher. Bangalore would have loved to have Robin Uttappa but they lost him to IPL Mumbai - Mumbai Indians during the first IPL auction.

Still, they have a pretty strong team with Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble as the bowling attack

IPL Bangalore - Bangalore Royal Challengers Launched

In a glittering ceremony Vijay Mallaya owned Bangalore team was launched. The team will be known as the Bangalore Royal Challengers. It will be lead by former captain Rahul Dravid and has current captain Anil Kumble in its ranks. Jacques Kallis of South Africa is the other star player of the team.

Former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe will be the chief cricketing officer for the outfit. The team colors will be red and gold.