Indian players set to score big on IPL money

Move to a rupee-based auction method means a 10-20 per cent jump in fees

Annual cricket extravaganza, the Indian Premier League (IPL), is set to become a bigger money game for Indian players from the 2014 edition of the 20-20 tournament. Come February, IPL’s auction of players will be shifted to a rupee-based mechanism -- something that will boost Indian cricketers’ income substantially.

Earlier, according to the rules of the IPL governing council, Indian players were paid in dollars under a system where, irrespective of the prevailing exchange rate, each dollar translated into Rs 40. Given the volatility seen in the value of the Indian currency this year -- the rupee at one point had weakened to Rs 68 a dollar -- the players, as well as team owners, were uncomfortable with the dollar-tagged auction system.

“It’s an Indian league so auction should be in Indian rupees. Certainly, our income will go up; it is a good sign. In fact, this was top on the agenda for our franchise owners; it will give them precise estimates of total cost to build up a squad,” said a senior player of the Kolkata Knight Riders team, co-owned by actor Shah Rukh Khan.

Indian cricketers were paid at the same rate earlier, but the rupee’s recent depreciation meant that team owners had to shell out more for foreign cricketers. This hit teams’ budgets.

The move to a rupee-based system should translate into a 10-20 per cent jump in existing players’ fee, but it could vary for some -- IPL’s 2014 edition is going to see some uncapped players getting a taste of one of the most popular cricketing tournaments globally.

According to a member of the IPL governing council, most team owners had discussed this issue and batted for a shift to the Indian currency.

“Most of them (team owners), including the bigger teams, pitched for the auctions to be held in rupee terms. The way the rupee was falling, we thought it was time we moved to our own currency,” said the IPL governing council member, asking not to be named.

For the 2014 edition, franchises’ full-squad salary payouts have been capped at Rs 60 crore. This will see an annual jump of five per cent for the next two editions, according to the IPL governing council rules.

“Till the exchange rate was stable, dollar-tagged auctions didn’t make much of a difference. But now, with the rupee’s drastic fall, it was only a matter of time,” the person quoted above said.

Even the foreign players in the tournament -- contrary to an earlier buzz -- are not going to lose out too much.

After the auction, players from abroad would be given the option of going for the currency of their choice, at the prevailing exchange rate on either the actual date of payment or contract due date. An IPL team can have a maximum of nine foreign players in the squad and only four in the playing 11 for any match.