With an estimated 2.5 billion fans worldwide, cricket ranks No. 2 among the world’s most popular sports, trailing only soccer. A huge part of that is fandom in India, and within that the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been a driving force in turning T20 cricket from a fast-paced offshoot of the game, to the most beloved format in the sport.

Boasting eight different champions since the league was formed 18 years ago, the 10-team IPL has been thriving because of its parity, unique drafting system, and competition, which draws the best players in the world to India for the IPL season. The only missing part of the equation has been the finances behind the scenes, and now we have details.

Our colleagues over at Sportico have published the first-ever team valuations for the IPL, and it shows the overall health of the league. Leading the charge are the Mumbai Indians, representing the largest city in the country. They are the only team to clear the $2B mark, which isn’t surprising — but what does turn heads is how close the competition is behind them when it comes to team worth. This is a league that is not just surviving, but thriving, and is becoming the litmus test every cricketing nation is trying to follow.

The wait is on until the IPL returns in March of 2027, but it’s worth diving back into what made the 2026 season tick in terms of just how close the competition was.

A back-to-back champion, but LOTS of competition

Royal Challengers Bengaluru went back-to-back thanks to the eternally peerless batting of Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal, but don’t let that muddy the water into thinking that Bengaluru is a team running their opponents off the wicket. They finished the season with a 9-5 overall record, but so did the Gujarat Titans and Sunrisers Hyderabad — while the Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings were narrowly behind at 8-6 and 7-6-1, respectively.

That means that half the league was separated by a single win or less, making the four-team playoff system in the IPL a total toss-up. Moreover, every team in the league finished with at least four wins in their 14 games — meaning that nobody is truly bottomed out.

Still home to the most fascinating draft in sports

The IPL “draft” is more open free agency than it is a draft in the strictest terms we know from sports in the United States. Players who are set to hit the market enter the IPL Draft Auction, which is held each year, allowing teams to put their money where they mouths are to bid for a player’s services in an open venue, with the high-bidder getting the chance to transform their team.

In 2026 we saw the Kolkata Knight Riders completely overhaul their order by making a league-high 13 picks. It didn’t pay immediate dividends for KKR, who improved only slightly from their 2025 finish — but much of the 2026 season was about getting them to gel as a team. This should position them as a team to watch in 2027 as $3M buy Cameron Green establishes himself as the heart of the order with the Australian poised to break out.

The “Mega Auction” is coming

The 2027 IPL Draft Auction set to take place in December will be the final mini-auction of the cycle. These smaller events are where only a handful of players leave each team, or enter the league as a whole.

In 2028 the IPL will sign a new media rights deal, and to coincide with it, there will be a Mega Auction, which only occurs every handful of years. In the Mega Auction teams can only protect a small handful of their roster, with every other player being released into the auction pool. This level of both financial transparency and roster shakeup means that IPL players are rarely locked into horrible contracts, with pay moving as the league does. It’s expected that a new rights deal will remain the highest in the world after the NFL, with an estimated $5.4B annually being pumped into the league. However, there could be some interesting competition between current rights holder Disney/Viacom led JioHotstar, and a dark horse like Amazon or even Netflix.

The stage is set for a fascinating few years in the IPL

The one nut the IPL has yet to crack is trying to get its competition into the U.S. mainstream. Cricket would love to position itself as the perfect late-Spring sport, which can launch right as the NBA and NHL is wrapping up, and carry over the gap into baseball season.

Conversely, MLB would love to market itself in India as being a summer sport that can take over viewing when the IPL finishes its season. This symbiotic relationship is already manifesting itself in crossover events between the two sports and could lead to us seeing baseball players try to make the switch and play in the IPL, or cricketers attempt to pick up a round bat and learn another sport. That, paired with the overall parity of the IPL and its upcoming Mega Auction make the IPL a league to watch in the coming years.

Simply put: Indian Premier League cricket is the No. 1 sport in the world that you’re probably not watching.