Pakistan Super League welcomes Multan as its sixth franchise

What's the Story?

Pakistan Super League is all set to welcome its sixth franchise on board. The newest member to join the two-year-old T20 league is a team based out of Multan. Schon, a Dubai-based enterprise with its roots in Pakistan, will own the franchise. The enterprise will pay $5.2 million per year for the team amounting to a total worth of $41.6 million.

Until now the team with the highest value was Karachi Kings at $2.6 million per year. The Pakistan Cricket Board expects this new addition to be a game changer for the league. With the introduction of the sixth team in PSL, the number of matches will also increase and PCB is now planning to host a minimum of 8 matches in Pakistan from next season.

In case you didn't know...

PCB wanted to include another team since the first season of this tournament was played in 2016. However, due to the contract between the board and other franchises, no other team could be added for two years. As the period of the contract has now come to an end, PCB welcomed this team based out of the fifth largest city in Pakistan.

All the matches of the first edition of PSL were played in the United Arab Emirates due to the security concerns of the overseas players. However, the final of the 2017 edition was played in Lahore. PCB is now directing towards organising at least four games in Karachi and Lahore each from the next edition.

The heart of the matter

In April this year, PCB announced the new addition to the league and May 30th was decided as the deadline for the same. According to reports, around 30 companies showed interest in the same and PCB received 12 bids from which the bid made by Schon group was the only one that made a cut by being high enough to meet the base price of $5.2 million per year.

The addition of a new team will cause a cut in the revenue of other teams from the central revenue pool. This is why other franchise owners were not in the favour of this decision, thereby delaying this proposal by a year.

What's next?

With a new team playing in the PSL next season, the number of matches will go up to 34 from 24.

Author's take

The addition of the new team will further widen the opportunities for young domestic talents in Pakistan. It will be interesting to see what kind of combination do the team owners go for while picking the squad.