Indian Premier League, cricket’s cash cow, is growing leaps and bounds season by season. The richest and biggest T20 league in the world by a sizeable margin, each stakeholder is well-aware of its financial muscle. That said, Royal Challengers Bangalore legend AB de Villiers, bought for $1.1 million during IPL 2011 auction, believed that IPL players are massively underpaid.
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Speaking on his YouTube channel during IPL 2023, the ‘Superman’ of cricket had made a shocking revelation about IPL players’ salaries stating that they don’t complain because they’re delighted to be receiving a salary far higher than what they earn while playing international cricket.
de Villiers, one of the most loved overseas players in the IPL, remained grateful for whatever IPL has done for his financial life but still put across his point with regard to IPL players earning fairly less of what is the total revenue of the competition.
de Villiers’ statement, which came as a shock to many, was based on a report published by The Telegraph right before the start of the 16th season of the IPL. The report comprehensively dissected how IPL isn’t paying its players as per unregulated global standards prevalent across other sports due to a drastic lack of competition.
“Are the IPL players getting paid enough? They’re getting 17% in comparison to the NBA, NFL, which is over the 40s, I think over 35% to 45%. It leaves, in my opinion, a window open for other tournaments, other leagues to possibly compete with the IPL. Maybe even steal a little bit from them, which I hope won’t happen. But, if you leave a door open, things start happening. I don’t know. It’s not enough. That’s for sure. I mean the cricketers are so happy because they are still earning good money, well, compared to what they used to back in the day. But if you compare it to other sports around the world, the IPL players are highly underpaid,” de Villiers had said.
Are IPL Players Underpaid?
Make no mistake, the salaries of IPL players are sumptuous, to say the least. As recent as last month, Australian fast bowler Micthell Starc earned a record-breaking amount of INR 24.75 crore (nearly USD 3 million) to become the most expensive player in IPL history shortly after his captain Pat Cummins had become the first player to be sold for INR 20 crore. These figures are certainly higher than the highest IPL 2023 earners.
However, if one compares it with Stephen Curry, the highest-paid NBA player, he earns USD 51.91 million, which is roughly equivalent to INR 432 crore per season. Similarly, NFL Quarterback Joe Burrow, highest paid there, earns USD 55 million (INR 457 crore approximately). MLB player Max Scherzer, on the other hand, mints USD 43.3 million (approx INR 360 crores). IPL salaries, therefore, stand nowhere close to other major sporting leagues.
The aforementioned leagues are able to pay their top-echelon players so well because of the percentage of contracts is set at a higher level by default. Some leagues shelve almost half of the total revenue to deserving athletes. Even though the US sports market has a salary cap for franchises, players willingly demand what they deserve knowing that they have the backing of player unions.
IPL franchises, meanwhile, have only INR 100 crore to build a team in spite of the fact that each franchise stands to earn more than INR 550 crore per season. The overall revenue of the cash-rich league was INR 93,500 crores in 2023, INR 5,500 crore more than what it was in the year before. Despite that, all the 10 teams spent a cumulative of just INR 731.2 crore for retaining players and another INR 167 crore in the auction, which makes it a total of INR 898.2 crores spent on players’ salaries. Shockingly, it is less than 1% of the total IPL revenue.
Another difference that IPL presents as compared to these giant US sports leagues is the duration of the tournament. Initially held between a 45-day window, it has now expanded to a 58-day window. That said, it’s still nowhere close to any of the American leagues, which run anywhere between 5-6 months. The Premier League in England, on the contrary, runs for more than nine months.
AB de Villiers Proposes Elongated IPL Seasons
To tackle the low-percentage salary of players, de Villiers proposed the idea of elongated IPL seasons. Not the first person to do so, de Villiers hoped for IPL to grow and expand on the lines of US leagues. He also suggested it to be played at a global level.
The former South African captain further put forward the idea of IPL franchises partaking under a singular banner and name, devoid of a city name (like Super Kings and not Chennai Super Kings), globally. If de Villiers’ foresight is to be articulated, one would get to see IPL teams playing in different cities of different countries for around 8-9 months in a year to lift a single silverware – The IPL Trophy.
IPL franchises, for the moment, are expanding wings in other ways. A foray into foreign territories, which would’ve been uncharted in cricketing terms until a few years ago, has been made possible due to leagues such Caribbean Premier League, SA20, International League T20 and Major League Cricket, all of which have franchises whose owners have roots connects to the IPL.
As much as the potential of the IPL is huge and it is guaranteed to flourish with every passing season, playing it for more than two months seems implausible at the moment due to international calendar.
