Tushar Katheria, Founder-Katheria Sports Law Offices | Published: 21 December 2023
After the success of the young Indian Cricket Team in the ICC T-20 World Cup in 2007, the BCCI announced a new format of a global T-20 league. The IPL or the Indian Premier League, which started as a 20-overs format of a franchise cricket league with the inspiration of the NBA, has become the best T-20 league globally with a current valuation of almost $10.7 billion. However, everyone wants to know how the IPL auction system works. The IPL Auction process is one a transparent system where the owners of the respective franchise team bid for their favourite player. Let us go through this process: –
- Base Price: The IPL Governing Council assigns a base price to each player based on their cricketing credentials. The cricket credentials also depend if a player is an international capped player or an uncapped player. Usually, the base of an international capped player will be between INR 50 Lakhs to 2 Crore but it can be less than INR 50 Lakhs. And for the uncapped player, it can be between INR 5 Lakhs to 30 Lakhs. There are some player who also got released from their respective franchise team, they also set their base price before the auction day. Such released player slots usually put the base price around INR 1 Crore to 2 Crore.
- Player Registration: A cricket player, who wishes to participate in the IPL, first he needs to register himself before the IPL auction. The player registration can only be done by the State Cricket Association. In case there is an international player, the respective national cricket board or federation/ association will help him with this registration process.
- Right to Match (RTM): The teams that retained players prior to the auction have the option to use the Right to Match card for specific players during the auction. This enables them to match and secure the highest bid for their retained players. The RTM Card can only be used before a Mega Auction. The Mega Auction can only be decided by the IPL Governing Council. The IPL Governing Council will notify every team about the Mega Auction, and accordingly, the owners will retain the players. The IPL Governing Council will also notify about a ‘n’ number of players who will be retained, which includes foreign players, Indian players and uncapped players. Usually, only 3 to 5 players were allowed to be retained and only one or two foreign players were allowed. And rest of the players will go through the Bidding process of the IPL Auction.
- Budget Management: It is important for the team owners to spend their money wisely. When a team’s budget or squad is depleted, it can no longer participate in the auction. The final budget will only be decided once the team announce the retained player. Usually, the total budget for an IPL Team is INR 100 Crore. The IPL Governing Council will notify about the maximum amount can be spent for an RTM player. Last time, it was INR 30 Crore. Once they
- Auction Day: The auction is usually held at a live event attended by team owners, coaches, and support staff. Teams can bid on players as they are presented one by one through a sorting hat. The IPL Governing Council will send a notification to all the team owners about the date of the IPL Auction, venue, and time. The IPL Governing Council will also need information about the people who will be representing their respective teams. Generally, the key managerial personnel of the team, the coaches, the director of the cricket team, and analysts. The representatives of the team are allowed to use their mobile phones, laptops or tablets to connect with the Captain of the team or the owners of the team.
- Bidding: The bidding starts at the player’s base price, and teams can take turns bidding higher amounts. The team that places the highest bid for a player wins the bid. During the auction process, only the auctioneer will present on stage with one of the members of the IPL Governing Council. During every slot, a different member of an IPL Governing Council will come to take out a slip from a sorting hat. Each slip has a different number with the name of a player. There are different slots where cricket players are categorised. First, the bidding will start with the capped player who got released from their previous team. Then it will start with the capped player of batters, then all-rounders, then bowlers, and then wicketkeepers. Once the slot of capped players gets exhausted the uncapped category player’s bidding process will be started.
- Unsold Players: If no bids are received for a player, he is not sold. However, the Unsold players may be given another chance in subsequent rounds in case any team are willing to buy these category of player, or they may remain unsold for the duration of the auction.
- Squad Formation: Each team has a squad of players within its budget at the end of the auction. After that, the squads are complete, and the teams prepare for the upcoming IPL season.
