International Premier Tennis League gives top salary to players

NEW DELHI: The Indian Premier League’s share in the total salary bill of the country’s top eight sports leagues may be more than half, but when it comes to the payment to an individual player, the cash-rich IPL doesn’t top the list. That distinction goes to the Mahesh Bhupati-led International Premier Tennis League ( IPTL).

IPTL paid more than Rs 26 crore each to tennis stars Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in 2014-15, according to a report on Indian sports salaries. This is almost double of what the highest paid player in the IPL gets.

The total salary bill of the top eight sports leagues in India is about Rs 823 crore with IPL accounting for Rs 420 crore in 2014-15. It was Rs 285 crore in tennis, Rs 63 crore in football, Rs 27 crore in hockey and Rs 6 crore in kabaddi, said the report by research firm Super Insight, which is part of sports marketing firm Super Sports.

The top 17 leagues in the world spend over $18 billion (Rs 1.22 lakh crore) on player salaries. This includes IPL.

Globally most players are signed up for the whole year, but IPL runs for two months and players are free to play in other similar leagues after that.




The eight leagues — IPL, Indian Super League, Hockey India League, IPTL, Premier Badminton League, Champions Tennis League, Pro Kabaddi League and the Pro Wrestling League — together have 857 players.

Salaries of the 521 Indian players In these leagues made for over 36%, or Rs 296 crore, of the total while the rest — 64%, or Rs 527 crore — went to foreign players, the report said.

Among foreign players, Australians got 11.4% of the total, while South Africans got 6% and the Swiss, 5%.

Among the leagues, while the average pay per player in IPL was Rs 2.5 crore, it was Rs 5.5 crore in IPTL. The lowest average salary was in PKL at Rs 3.85 lakh. Within IPL, Royal Challengers Bangalore were the highest spenders – Rs 63.5 crore in 2015 with an average of Rs 2.5 crore per player. The Indian Aces team in the IPTL spent a shade lower at Rs 63.36 crore, but the average salary was much higher at Rs 6.3 crore.