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The Indian Premier League (IPL) is one of the most popular T20 leagues in the world. But before the action goes to the cricket pitch, plenty of drama happens in a hotel auditorium where the franchises spend big money to buy their favourite players. The IPL auctions are given as much importance as the tournament itself and believe it or not they attract or almost as much eyeballs as a cricket match.

All over the world, the cricketers who have put their names in the auction pool, remain glued to the television or online streaming to see if they are being picked up a franchise and if yes, for how much. In a recent interview, former Indian Premier League (IPL) Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sundar Raman gave an insight into how the IPL players auction came into existence before the inaugural season in 2008.

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The player auction almost came as a part of an evening tea conversation while we were doing a thousand other things. We had sold the franchises, we had the venues confirmed, now it was left to on how do we get the players rostered into different teams, Raman said during the show 22 Yarns with Gaurav Kapur on Oaktree Sports YouTube channel.

The only thing sure was the marquee players, who were assigned to a set of franchises. There was Sachin Tendulkar for Mumbai, Virender Sehwag for Delhi, Yuvraj Singh for Punjab, Sourav Ganguly for Kolkata. But MS Dhoni was without a home, Raman said.

The challenge was one of those conversations where the question was how do we make the franchises take on the players? One of the franchises, I dont remember who it was, said why dont we auction them?

After two minutes of deliberation I said good idea, it will generate a lot of consumer interest. And that decided that he explained.

The 13th edition of Indian Premier League which was set to take place this year between March and May has been indefinitely postponed due to Covid-19 outbreak.

Original post:
An evening tea party, a random suggestion: The story behind IPL auction - Hindustan Times