In salary capped leagues, it is of the utmost importance to spend efficiently, in order to achieve the best possible results. Mismanagement here can have an adverse impact on team performance and a couple of bad contracts can prove to be extremely detrimental.

The Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) is no different when it comes to this, as we have seen teams falter over the years because they have grossly mismanaged their budget. In this analysis, we take a look at one particular area where we have noticed that teams are being a bit inefficient when it comes to fund allocation. First, let us take a look at how the auction works in the PKL.

Players are grouped into A, B, C, and D categories (A being the highest and D being the lowest) which determines the base salary that they can go for, which is as follows:

• Category A: INR 30,00,000/-

• Category B: INR 20,00,000/-

• Category C: INR 10,00,000/-

• Category D: INR 6,00,000/-

A separate category from these is the New Young Player (NYP) category, which is for players who are aged between 18-22 and have never appeared in the auction before. These players earn a fixed salary in the first year of their contract and the amount stands at INR 7,98,600 for PKL 8, having been increased from INR 7,30,000 in PKL 7.

Now let’s take a look at a percentage-wise breakdown of the PKL 7 auction in terms of players being picked from the categories that we mentioned.

As we see, Category C players accounted for the most with them representing 33% of the total auction picks, and the average salary for these players amounted to INR 14,44,000, a significantly large amount. Now is this large investment actually worth it? Is there a better way to spend this money and get equal or better value elsewhere? Let’s see how these Type C players fared when compared to NYP’s, who went for a fixed price of INR 7,30,000 as mentioned earlier.

We clearly see here that despite nearly double the price, there isn’t a lot to separate Category C players from NYP’s when it came to matches played and started come the end of the season. In fact, NYP’s in PKL 7 outperformed the C category players by quite a bit on the mat, scoring 5.04 more points on average.

It can be inferred from this that the NYP’s provide significantly better value for money and teams should actually opt for them over Category C players. The funds saved here can instead be used to sign more A and B Category players, which will greatly enhance the team’s chances of success .

PIC Credit : Prokabaddi.com