IPL 2025: Franchises seek change in frequency of mega auctions, retention and RTM rules

Ahead of the Indian Premier League 2025, franchise owners are bracing for the mega auction as the time has come for retentions and releases. The franchise owners have requested the officials to conduct the mega auctions once every five years and sought an allowance to retain four to six players ahead of auctions. These changes have been reportedly demanded during the feedback sessions on player retention ahead of the 2025 auction.

Mega auctions are slated for every three years currently. However, as per an ESPNcricinfo report, a senior official has suggested that a longer gap would help the franchises maintain continuity, nurture uncapped talents and also improve fan engagement. For instance, some of the franchises that have been around since IPL’s inception have their scouting academies where plenty of raw talents and unearthed and launched at the IPL, albeit often only for the franchises to lose the players they found and honed to the auction pool.

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"... the franchise official said teams could also be allowed to work directly with its players to renegotiate salaries between mega auctions. This would help teams to not just retain core players but also help them reach better terms with players who were bought at base or lower prices at previous auctions," the report reads.

The suggested rules could potentially let the teams keep the sanctity of their team combination intact. The maximum number of players getting retained and the RTM option will see the combination maintained with an option of adding newer uncapped players as well. 

Talks on for RTM

The talks are also on regarding the Right-to-Match (RTM) option, which is essentially a provision to enable the current franchise of a player to buy him/her back through matching the concerned player's sold price at the auction. 

"A CEO at another franchise said teams could be allowed to retain one big player, possibly the captain, and the rest could be through RTMs. Such an approach would allow the market to determine a player's price, and also remove any monetary disappointment a player may have if they are last in the retention pecking order," the report reads. "While such a combination is favoured by some franchises, at least one team official said it had potential to cause disgruntlement among the players retained ahead of the auction, if those bought back via the RTM option happened to secure higher bids."

Also likely to be discussed in the meeting is the fate of the much-discussed Impact Player rule (which has garnered mixed response from the players and experts), the overall purse availability, and salaries of retained players. The meeting is expected to be held in early August.