IPL cricketers world’s No.2 sports earners

Cricketers playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) are the second highest earners in the sports world with Royal Challengers Bangalore leading the camp, a new report shows.

When IPL salaries are pro-rated, their players are the No. 2 earners on $4.33 million (Dh16 million) a year on average, ahead of Major League Baseball players in third, according to a survey of wages conducted by Sporting Intelligence and ESPN The Magazine.

The highest paying football league, the Premier League, had an average salary of $3.8 million (Dh14 million).

Paris Saint-Germain's players are the best paid team of professional sportsmen in the world, in any sport, bar none. This sixth edition of Sporting Intelligence’s global sports salaries survey (GSSS) calculated average first-team pay at Paris Saint-Germain at $9 million, which equates to $174,692 per week (£101,898).

In the IPL, the players are contracted for the period of the event, seven weeks in the case of 2014, and spend much of the rest of the time as ‘guns for hire’ with different teams in different leagues.

The starting point for IPL salaries therefore is average weekly pay, extrapolated pro rata to get an annual average sum. “IPL is the only league where we do this, because the players there, uniquely, routinely each have multiple employers in one year,” the report noted.

Among the overall top 50 clubs, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) players on average earn $4.5 million annually or $86,607 per week (Dh318,000), followed by Chennai Super Kings at $4.474 million per annum or $86,045 (Dh316,000) a week; Mumbai Indians at $4.47 million per annum or $85,973 a week (Dh315,000).
The other clubs that made into the top 50 are Sunrisers Hyderabad with an average player earning $4.378 million per annum or $84,205 a week (Dh309,000), Kolkata Knight Riders at $4.36 million a year or $83,893 a week (Dh308,000) and Delhi Daredevils at $4.341 million per year or $83,491 every week (Dh306,000).

The least paying IPL club was Kings XI Punjab with an average club cricketer earning $4.03 million a year (Dh284,000 a week).

IPL third most social

The study rates IPL the third most social with 58 million followers with Chennai Super Kings leading with 12.1 million fans while Delhi Daredevils sits at the bottom with 2.9 million followers.

In terms of attendance, IPL is overall rated sixth in its 56 games with 1.558 million passion cricket followers attending the game which amounts to an average 27,833 people attending the game.

Daredevils topping the list with total 203,666 fans watching the games, which amounts to an average 27,833 each game.

King XI Punjab games were the least watched games as 175,000 fans – an average 25,000 people every game – watched the matches live.

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