Pro Kabaddi League Season 5 auction: Rules, player categories, budget explained

Season 5 of the Pro Kabaddi League is all set for a July start

The Pro Kabaddi League Season 5 auction is all set to take place in Delhi on Monday and going under the hammer will over 350 players – both domestic and international. Competing for them will be 12 teams, out which four will be featuring in the league for the very first time.

Seven teams have opted to retain a player each, while the Jaipur Pink Panthers have chosen not to retain any of their players from season four. The auction has been divided into two days – May 22 and 23. Here are all the rules explained:

Player categorization 

For the purpose of auctions, players are categorized into 3 heads

- Elite Retained player/ priority pick (Category – A, B OR C) 

- Auction pool player (Domestic – A, B, C + Overseas – A, B, C) (Category – A, B OR C)

- New Young player (NYP) (Players left after ‘out of auction’ allocation go into Category D)

Related: Pro Kabaddi League Season 5: List of retained players announced

Base Prices

1. Elite/Retained Players and Priority picks premium base prices

Category A – INR 35 Lakh
Category B – INR 20 Lakh
Category C – INR 12 Lakh

2. Category Base Prices for Auction pool

Category A – INR 20 Lakh
Category B – INR 12 Lakh
Category C – INR 8 Lakh
Category D – INR 5 Lakh
NYP – fixed salary of INR 6 Lakh

Team Composition

- A Franchise may choose 18-25 players to form a team

- Teams may retain up to a maximum of 1 Elite Retained Player/Priority pick

- A team might choose up to 3 New Young players

- Number of overseas players in a team may vary from 2 to 4 – 2 minimum

Elite player 

An elite player is a class of eligible player which includes:

Elite Retained Player – Each Franchisee that has participated in Season IV is permitted to retain one Player from its Season IV Squad in its Squad for Season V (referred to as an elite retained player). An Elite Retained Player may be a Domestic Player or an Overseas Player (from Category A, B or C).

New Franchisee Priority Selection Player – The new Franchisees participating in Season V, who have not participated in any preceding Season will not have any Elite Retained Player. However, they will be allowed to make a priority Selection (“New Franchisee Priority Selection”) to contract up to 1 (one) Player from the overall Season IV players available after the allocation of Elite Retained Players to existing Franchisees. Such New Franchisee Priority Selection Players may be either Domestic Players or Overseas Players (from Category A, B or C).

Dynamic Pricing 

For the Elite player (Elite retained or priority pick), the final salary will be dependent on the particular team’s highest spend on a player during the auction. This means that their salary cap will be updated Real-Time on the day of the auction. The salary payable to Elite player shall be the higher of: 

- The premium base salary or 

- A 10% increment on the highest amount bid by the respective Franchisee for any other Player of the same or lower category acquired in the Season V Open Auction

For example – If a player retained by a Franchise is a Cat B player (with premium base salary of say 20Lacks) and during the auction the Franchise bids 40L for either a Cat B or Cat C player (which is greater than premium base salary of retained player) then the salary payable to Elite player will be 44L

Note – if Franchise bids 40 L for Cat A player, this does not change the salary payable to elite player because the Elite player (Cat B) is a lower category player than auctioned player (cat A)

Total salary purse – Rs 4 crore

Salary purse available for auction = 4 Crores MINUS the total spent on Retained Elite Player/Priority pick (considering only the premium base prices as mentioned above), Retained Young Player and NYP players picked up at allocation.