Womens Premier League, 2024

The WPL also known as the Women's Premier League, is ready to start on February 23rd, 2024 and this will be the second season of this thrilling women's cricket league. Here's a breakdown:

T20s will be played across the country with 5 teams participating – Mumbai Indians Women, Delhi Capitals Women, Royal Challengers Bangalore Women, UP Warriorz, and Gujarat Giant. The winning team will progress to the final, while the second and third-best teams will play in the Eliminator to determine the challenger to the championship.

WPL 2024 Details

A full season will be organized in two stadiums and two parts 1st part from 23 Feb to 4 March in Bengaluru and the 2nd in Delhi from 5 March to 17 March. The Arun Jaitley Stadium will host the playoff game, the eliminator on 15 March, and the final on 17 March. The kickoff time for each match is 7:30 PM IST.

WPL 2024 Venue

• M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru (Capacity: 33,800)
• Arun Jaitley Cricket Stadium, Delhi (Capacity: 35,200)

WPL 2024 History:

In February 2022, Sourav Ganguly, BCCI President announced plans to launch a women's version of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a men's major Twenty20 cricket franchise competition in India, which later replaced the Women's T20 Challenge. By August ideas were more mature and in October BCCI announced that they were considering a five-team tournament on March 2023. This league unofficially was named the Women's Indian Premier League, and later, BCCI Secretary Jay Shah clarified the BCCI officially called it the Women's Premier League.

On 28th January 2023, BCCI opened the bidding for the title sponsorship rights of the IPL from 2023-27. The Tata Group won the bid (a sum which has not been disclosed). Mumbai Indians were the first champions of the competition, they beat Delhi Capitals in the final.

WPL 2024 Financial background

BCCI plans to share 80% of the revenue from the league between the franchise owners during the first 5 years. In the next five seasons, 60% of the profits are going to be distributed and from seasons 11 to 15, 50% of the profit will be used. Furthermore, 80% of revenues from the central licensing rights for the competition will be shared among the franchises. Revenue for franchises can be generated through merchandise, ticket sales, and advertising.

WPL 2024 Player auction

The first auction of buying players for each team was held on 13th February 2023 in Mumbai. About 1,500 players submitted their names for the competition. Each team was allotted a budget of ₹12 crore (US$1.5 million) and they needed to recruit between 15 and 18 players, six of whom could be overseas.

At the first auction, the base price of an uncapped player was between ₹10 Lakh (US$ 13,000) and ₹20 Lakh (US$ 25,000). For the capped players, it was from ₹30 lakh (US$38,000) and ₹50 lakh (US$63,000). In future seasons every team's purse size is to be raised by ₹1.5 crore (US$190,000) each year.

In the 1st auction ₹59.50 crore (US$7.5 million) was spent and 87 players were purchased. Smriti Mandhana was the most expensive player purchased in the initial auction; she signed with Royal Challengers Bangalore for ₹3.4 crore (US$430,000) and was made the team's captain.

WPL 2024 Broadcasting

In January 2023, Viacom18, the media house announced that it had acquired the global broadcast rights which includes TV and digital broadcasts for the tournament. The fans in India can look forward to the first season of the league on the Sports18 channel and JioCinema app from Viacom18. The coverage of the first season of the competition in the UK was on Sky Sports.

WPL 2024 Teams List: