IPL 2nd highest-paid league, edges out EPL

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: If you believe that cricketers’ wages in the Indian Premier League are minuscule compared with football’s English Premier League, it’s time to think again. According to the inaugural Annual Review of Global Sports Salaries to be published later this week by sportingintelligence.com, the second-highest paid league, based on first-team salary on a prorata basis is the Indian Premier League. Second only to the American National Basketball Association (NBA) league, whose annual average salary is £2.62 million, the IPL’s average salary, calculated over a year, is £2.5 million. It must be understood the league is only played within a six-week period, but the amount the cricketers earn in terms of wages during the time when Twenty20 rules the roost is astounding. The third highest paid is American Major League Baseball, at £1.82 million while the EPL stands only fourth, at £1.46 million. In the 211-team list currently monitored by average first-team pay, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) comes in at 12th, at an average of £57,833 a week, standing two places above Manchester United. Only two EPL teams feature in the top 30, the other being Chelsea at No. 4, while IPL can boast of three — Kolkata Knight Riders (£56,445/week) and Chennai Super Kings (£55,526 /week). At No. 1 is the MLB’s New York Yankees (£89,897 /week) followed by the Spanish Primera Liga giants, Real Madrid (£81,444) and Barcelona (£78,231). Chelsea, the top EPL club at 68,946, are followed by seven NBA teams, and then IPL’s own RCB.