Every IPL auction, 2008 onwards

How the auction works

Before each auction the franchises submit the players they want to keep and the league publishes a list of everyone else who has registered. Players are put up for sale in sets, grouped by role and experience, each with a base price they have chosen. Franchises bid against each other from that base, and every purchase comes out of a purse that is the same for every team, so a big buy early in the day limits what a side can do later. A player who draws no bid goes unsold, and may come back in a quicker round at the end.

Squads also have rules to satisfy: a minimum and maximum number of players, and a limit on overseas players both in the squad and in the playing XI. Much of what looks like a strange price is a franchise filling a slot it has to fill. The auction guide covers the rules in more detail.

Mega and mini auctions

Every few years the league holds a mega auction, in which franchises may keep only a handful of players and the rest of every squad is sold again. In between, mini auctions fill gaps. The difference shows in the money: a mega auction can move several times as much as the mini auctions either side of it, and it is where franchises reveal what they actually think a squad should look like.

Reading this archive

Each season page lists every player sold, what each franchise spent, the most expensive buys and how those players performed for their new side that season. Spending covers auction purchases only: players retained, traded or signed as replacements are not included, which is why totals can look low in years when most of a squad was kept. The first six auctions were conducted in US dollars, and their prices are shown in rupees at the conversion recorded in the source list.