NEW DELHI: The Pakistan Super League (PSL) took a decisive step towards expansion on Thursday, inducting two new franchises ahead of the 2026 season — but the price tags attached underlined the stark financial gap between the PSL and the Indian Premier League (IPL).Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!A real estate consortium and a US-based aviation and healthcare conglomerate won the bids for the two new teams at a combined price of $12.75 million (approximately INR 114 crore). OZ Developers secured the Sialkot franchise for PKR 1.85 billion ($6.55 million), while the FKS Group from the United States picked Hyderabad after a successful bid of PKR 1.75 billion ($6.2 million).
With these additions, the PSL will expand from six to eight teams when the season begins on March 26, marking a new phase in the league’s growth strategy. However, the auction figures have sparked discussion across the cricketing world for a different reason — the dramatic contrast with IPL valuations.Each of the new PSL teams was sold for roughly INR 56–59 crore, a figure that is almost identical to the combined IPL salaries of Shreyas Iyer (INR 26.75 crore) and Rishabh Pant (INR 27 crore). In fact, the combined cost of the two new PSL franchises is still lower than the INR 118 crore spent on just the top nine players at the IPL 2026 auction.
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The contrast becomes even sharper when placed against IPL franchise sales. The two IPL expansion teams added in 2021 were sold for INR 5,625 crore and INR 7,090 crore respectively — nearly 100 to 125 times the price of a new PSL franchise on a like-for-like basis. Even when adjusted for inflation, the IPL’s original 2008 franchise fees would today sit in the INR 900–1,500 crore range, still vastly higher than PSL’s latest numbers.Meanwhile, former Multan Sultans owner Ali Khan Tareen stayed away from the auction despite being eligible to bid. Explaining his decision on social media, Tareen reiterated that his association with the PSL was rooted in representing South Punjab. “When the Multan team is being sold, we’ll be ready,” he wrote.For now, Multan Sultans will be run by the Pakistan Cricket Board this season before being put up for sale after the PSL concludes in April.
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