Free agencies operate auction in professional sports like soccer in the U.S and have a transfer window, unlike the Indian Premier League cricket (IPL), which appears to be the strangest, cruellest, but the most brilliant event in professional sports. It encourages betting of the worst kind. If sports in India has to be rid of unethical practices, we need to relook at the way the finances are managed by and the syndicates that control auction of players.
Like we have live auctions where a wave of the hand, sets the prises souring, the players in the IPL are also sold to the highest bidder. Each team can use its remaining budget akin to a salary cap, to buy new players, and if a player is cut or released, they will enter the following year’s auction pool. This leads to bizarre scenarios where a player could be making millions, then forced to accept a pittance if bidding for them is weak in the following year and they can’t say no to the team that bought them, unless they want to leave the IPL. Does this promote transparency? In the first place, what has determined the price of a player in a certain bidding year and what in the subsequent? A total of 169 players were sold, 56 overseas, as eight teams spent almost their entire purse to make their full squad for the IPL season 11.
Ben stokes, the British all-rounder was the marquee name in 2017. Bidding opened at INR 2 crore and swelled to INR 14.5 crore when the bidding was over. He got a price of 12.5 crore in 2018 and remained the most expensive buy, while Jaydev Unadkat bagged a bumper deal to become the costliest Indian player in this year’s auction by Rajasthan Royals. There are several others who ruled the roost in the earlier versions, but have bitten the dust in the current avatar.
Little known Varun Chakaravarthy emerged as one of the biggest surprise factors of the IPL auction. He was sold for a whopping Rs. 8.40 crore to the Kings XI Punjab in the recent bidding. His base price was Rs 20 lakh. Even foreign players unsung, unheard have made a whopping moolah.
The rhapsody becomes even more interesting when it dawns on us that both these teams uniformly fared badly in the earlier IPL’s. What raises the bids on unsung, unheard players almost 4000% when they don’t even play for their National teams? What rationalises such bizarre scenes? Is this royal fixing from the outset? Is this money accounted and paid for by digital transactions? We have digital economy. Don’t we? Is IPL patenting a cute revenue model that turns unaccounted to white with several grey shades added in?
Why is reverse bidding allowed in IPL? Let’s assume the case of a decent player, but not a superstar. It’s not likely there will be a frenzy over him, so teams can put in a reverse bid. This allows teams to start the bidding below the base cost. So the player is literally watching teams see how little they can pay for him, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Gerrymandering like the Americans say, seems to be built into the model.
2018, also saw the two teams, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals back from expulsion after they were banned from the league for two years for match fixing. When a player spends time in the cellar for longer periods, how are the teams justified returning to the altar so soon?
The IPL governing council sets a maximum amount like 75/80 crore that a team can spend in the first auction. Every year, the amount left over from the previous auction, plus the money available due to release of players from the team is the amount available for the current year auction. A little financial wizardry Vis a Vis the player buying and a little understanding of the operational part can set IPL on fire. However, the players who deliver versus the players who are known names may not be the same, spooking the arithmetic.
Players are nominated for bidding in a pre-set order, at a specific price. Any team in the league can then increase the bid, until no other team is willing to increase the active bid on the player. The bid counts down “Once, twice, SOLD“, assigning the player to the winning bidder prompting a new nomination. This continues until every team has filled every available roster spot, not exceeding the budget while doing so. The catch is in the detailing. Is the process as straight as this? The most-prepared managers, the ones who know their desired prices for any player at any moment including middle of auction, are the ones who most often enjoy success in auction formats. But they are also the points of spooking.
Does it then mean that offers could be made before auction stopping the building up of competition that can come on auction day and potentially force up the price of a player? At the same time, auction day could mean the player is sold for less than what was offered in the lead up. What happens when offers made before auction are exceptionally high and favourable only in certain conditions, as motivated buyers may not be just purchasing players, but also an ambiguous right not to compete with the market. Is this a future recipe for rigging?
Can relisting of the player be done after a failed auction campaign? Generally it provides a huge amount of information to prospective buyers, including how much the player was passed in for. It could appear stale in some buyer’s eyes. What current safeguards exist if this happens?
Absentee and Internet bidding might be possible in larger auctions. Buying any used car sight-unseen, save for a picture in a catalogue, is a dodgy proposition, but why can’t we use this in IPL where each player is known to be known. A digital tracking can make the process a little cleaner than it is. Alas, the best part of IPL may not be really about winning cricket games. The auction is a chance for the ultra-wealthy to show each other up in public by busting out the check-books. The entire auction looks frigging beautiful, all emotions like anger, contempt, or surprise in equal measure coming to the fore.