Who is the owner of Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL? Name, Age, Net Worth, Controversy, & Background

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is more than just a cricket tournament; it’s a carnival of color, energy, and entertainment that grips the nation for two months every year. Originally started in 2008, IPL was aimed at blending cricket with entertainment to enhance fan engagement and make it a commercially successful spectacle. The fusion of cricket and Bollywood was meant to captivate the audience in a nation that is crazy about both worlds.

Imagine getting the biggest superstar of Bollywood to own a team in the league which is meant to captivate the people. Well, that is what the founders managed to do with the Kolkata Knight Riders, one of the original 8 teams in the IPL back in 2008 when they announced that the franchise would be owned by the King of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan.

Not only that, they also managed to get onboard Bollywood actress Juhi Chawla and her husband Jay Mehta who own the Mehta Group into the picture and both parties combined to form the Knight Riders Sports Private Limited which owns the Kolkata Knight Riders with Shah Rukh Khan’s venture Red Chillies Entertainment owing 55% of the consortium and the Mehta Group owing the remaining 45% as they bought the franchise for Rs 262.5 crore (approx. US$75.09 million) in 2008.

Since the inception of the league, Kolkata Knight Riders have been one of the most popular teams in the league and one of the biggest reasons for that is their powerful owners who need no introduction and the franchise has created a huge fanbase around the country with its base in the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Kolkata Knight Riders are a hugely successful franchise in the league as well with three titles to their name in 2012, 2014 and the latest one in 2024 making them the defending champions in IPL 2025. They are one of the only three teams in the league’s 16-year history to have won the championship on multiple occasions.

Team Name	Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR)
Age	17 years
Ownership Since	2008, since the inception of the league
Team Captain	Not announced till date in 2025 (Shreyas Iyer captained the team to the title in 2024)
Head Coach	Chandrakant Pandit
Win %	1.11 (130 matches won out of a total of 252)
Net Worth	$US1.1 billion

Who are the Owners of KKR?

Shah Rukh Khan

Shah Rukh Khan is a world-renowned Bollywood actor who has been a part of Bollywood for more than three decades now. He debuted in 1992 with the movie “Deewana” and his latest film was “Dunki” which released in December 2023. He is a mega-star and the richest actor in Bollywood with a net worth of INR 5900 Crore.

Shah Rukh Khan has been married to her teenage love Gauri Khan who is an Indian film producer and fashion designer since 1991. The couple are the co-owners of their venture Red Chillies Entertainment which owns 55% of the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise.

Shah Rukh and Gauri have three children namely – Aryan Khan (born in 1997), Suhana Khan (born in 2000), and AbRam Khan (born in 2013) who are frequently spotted at the IPL matches of their franchise as well as during the auction process.

Shah Rukh Khan was born in Delhi and completed his schooling at St. Columba’s School in the same city. Later, he pursued a bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Hansraj College and then a master’s in Mass Communications from Jamia Millia University (he dropped out of the program), all in Delhi. He then joined the Theatre under Barry John and also attended the National School of Drama.

Apart from owning the Kolkata Knight Riders, Shah Rukh Khan’s primary company is Red Chillies Entertainment which is a production company that produces films and has a VFX studio and was established in 2002.

Also Read: Who is the Owner of Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL? Name, Age, Net Worth, Controversy, & Background

Juhi Chawla

Juhi Chawla is a renowned Bollywood actress who entered the film industry with the movie “Sultanat” in 1986. Before entering into the movies, Juhi was a model and she won the Miss India pageant in 1984 and also went on to represent India in the Miss Universe competition.

Juhi Chawla has been married to business tycoon and the chairman of Mehta Group, Jay Mehta, since 1995. The couple has two children, Jahnavi Mehta (born in 2001) and Arjun Mehta (born in 2003).

Juhi Chawla was born on November 13, 1967 in the city of Ludhiana in Punjab. She did a part of her schooling in Ambala after which her family moved to Mumbai where she attended the Fort Convent School and she graduated from Sydenham College in Mumbai with a degree in Human Resources.

Juhi Chawla is the second richest Bollywood actor after Shah Rukh Khan and has a whopping net worth of INR 4600 Crores. Her business ventures, combined with her investments and real estate portfolio, have propelled her to new financial heights. Today, her real estate holdings and collaborations with her husband, businessman Jay Mehta, contribute greatly to her net worth.

Jay Mehta

Jay Mehta is one of the leading business tycoons in India with assets exceeding $500 million. He is the Chairman of the Mehta Group which is a big conglomerate spanning continents and industries. Coming from a family of wealthy businessmen, Jay is the son of Mahendra Mehta and Sunayana Mehta and grandson of Nanji Kalidas Mehta, who founded the Mehta Group.

Jay Mehta went to Columbia University in New York to pursue his graduation in Bachelor of Science after which he moved to Switzerland where he did his MBA from the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne.

Jay Mehta is the chairperson of Mehta Group which is involved in different industries like cement, building material and engineering, healthcare, finance, real estate, and entertainment and employs over 15000 people over the world.

Performance Stats under Knight Riders Sports Private Limited

Kolkata Knight Riders have been one of the most successful teams in the history of the IPL and are one of only three teams to have won the title multiple times having done so thrice, in 2012, 2014 and 2024. They have a win percentage of 51.59 across all the 17 seasons of the tournament since 2008 having played 252 matches in total (third most after MI and RCB) and winning 130 of them giving them an impressive win/loss ratio of 1.11. In simpler terms, they win more than they lose.

Also, KKR’s tally of 130 wins is the third-highest among all the teams to have played the IPL in the history of the tournament.

Kolkata Knight Riders Ownership History

Kolkata Knight Riders have been one of the few IPL teams which has had the same owners since the inception of the league. The franchise was co-owned by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment (55%) and Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta’s Mehta Group (45%) when it was bought in 2008 and it still remains the same till date.

Corporate Career

With such huge businessmen and influential superstars owning the franchise, one would expect the consortium to expand throughout the globe and with the acumen that has exactly what has happened with the Knight Riders. The owners have brought teams in various leagues around the world and have expanded the brand wonderfully.

Team Name	League Name	Nation
Trinbago Knight Riders	Caribbean Premier League	West Indies (Caribbean Islands)
Abu Dhabi Knight Riders	ILT20	UAE
Los Angeles Knight Riders	Major League Cricket	USA

Controversies and Legal Challenges

When a franchise is as big as Kolkata Knight Riders with so many stakeholders involved, there are bound to be some controversies from time-to-time. Here are the legal challenges that the franchise has faced so far:

• FEMA Violation Notice to the owners in 2017: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned a show cause notice to the owners when it was revealed that the owners allegedly sold their shares in the company to a Mauritius-based company at a lower price thus violating Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) rules and causing the government a loss of INR 73.6 CRs.
• Sunil Narine Conundrum: Defending champions KKR threatened to pull out of IPL 2015 when their star-spinner was banned by BCCI from bowling in the tournament following which he had to remodel his action and undergo repeated trials before he received a clean chit with a warning.
• The Wankhede Drama: Probably the most popular one in this list is the 2012 incident when KKR co-owner Shah Rukh Khan engaged in a heated brawl with a security officer at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai who allegedly misbehaved with the actor’s children after a match between MI and KKR. Shah Rukh was banned from entering the stadium for 5 years, however, the ban was officially lifted in 2015.