Probably the first one was called ICL instead of IPL. And in that tournament almost every country sent a team of their own, unlike the IPL which was a mixture of players from different countries.
I think that is also a reason why IPL is so popular. And it really unlikely that any other League will surpass IPL in any way.
After Carry Packer this is second revolution is cricket history which changes all things very quickly for benefit of players and their respective boards and now bilateral cricket is going to face some tough time with this all because right now we have nearly 6 leagues and few also coming which will create problems, and we will have just these leagues and ICC Cups for some International exposure of the game of cricket.
@lixer another reason why IPL is so popular is because it didn’t need to create a fan base as almost every second Indian loves watching cricket, and IPL spiced it up with foreign player’s which became an added bonus.
Furthermore IPL won’t ever be beaten ever, because franchises, player’s, and the boards earn a lots of revenues from it, plus additional deals like merchandise sales earnings etc can’t be replicated by any other league because the audience size of IPL is way too big, and therefore I don’t think any other league can beat IPL.