IPL business model is the most profitable one. Here's why

Just like newspaper depend of subscribers who buy every morning, any sports event is dependent on tickets sold and IPL is no different. Thanks to its, craze among youths, IPL has always been welcomed warmly by the Indian fans. Almost 60% of the matches in IPL have a full house. The home team gets to keep a share of the ticket sales. That is the reason each team has 7 home games.

Sony India has been the official media sponsor of IPL for a decade. Sony takes a contract from BCCI for a certain sum, of which, a certain sum of money is given to each team based on the TRP Ratings by BCCI. Sony TV in return, earns money in the form of advertisements. For a 10 second slot of an advertisement, companies shell out money in lakhs.
However online, Star has partnered with IPL and streams the matches with 5-minute delay through apps.

Every year, we see the title sponsor of IPL changing. For the year 2017, the title sponsor has been Vivo.
A source on Quora reports Vivo pays some hundred crores, per season as per the contract. However, majority of this share goes to BCCI.

One cannot deny the fact that actors like Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta add glamour to the league. Also, players like Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh are associated with many brands. Their association with a team increases it’s ‘brand value’ and attracts many sponsors. Eg. SRK endorses 20+ brands, hence most of these brands act as sponsors for his team too.

Prize Money
IPL offers a prize money to the winners and runners up. This would be around 15 Crore.
For attracting sponsors and creating a brand value for itself, a team needs consistent success, for that it needs to win games, for that it needs good players who are bought for exorbitant amounts. However, since the inception KKR has been the team to earn most profits, thanks to King Khan, as confirmed by the Quora post.