It is most important and hard to find out
right team combination for any sports league. There is always dynamic situation
at auction table and strategy needs to be looked after each player auction.
This is very big task when there are a greater number of teams. Each fan eagerly
waits for auction day and predicts players to be part of his favorite team.
This is also very important when there will not be such kind of big auction in next
foreseeable future. So, each team needs to create their best team looking at long
future in mind. However, teams will get chance in future to trade players
between teams and small auctions. But that will only serve minor short-term
requirements. Full mega auction is highly crucial to build team.
Every team works as per their own way. But
there are few points common for all teams which they consider while selection
of player auction strategy. Following are some points:
1. Deciding core idea of a team
Every team wants best team utilizing
optimized resources. So why core idea of a team is important? Before answering
to this question, let’s understand about core idea of a team.
A team management decides together before mega
auction and as first step to prepare for mega auction about core idea. This core
will be different for all teams. For example, one team may decide all batsman
from India and key bowlers from foreign or some may target only all-rounders or
some may prepare complete young squad or some may go for right mix of
experience and youth or some may go for 4-5 best star players and others are
uncapped. Ideas are plenty but it should be decided in first place.
Core idea of a team is very important. For
example, CSK and MI are most successful IPL teams and they did not change their
core idea like captainship, team combination, player roles. It is one of the reasons
for their success in IPL.
2. Decide target players and divide them
as per priority
After deciding core idea of team, next
step is to decide on players which can be part of team. This step is to shorten
down funnel from ‘all available’ to ‘all required’ players.
Then decision is to be taken for priority
of players. Some players are required for making playing team and some players
are required for back ups for main team. Some players are required as reserved
which can be mentored and prepared for future.
For example, let’s say teams can divide
all players in A, B, C categories. Players in A category will constitute main
playing team. Players in B category will constitute back ups for category A players
and Players in C category will be uncapped young scouted players.
3. Decide possible auctioned price range for
each player
Every player in auction has his base
price. From this base price, team starts auction process. Team decides
performance of players in their selected categories (A, B, C). Also, it is good
to predict about number of teams targeting individual player. Based on the
same, each player is given possible auctioned price range within their
categories A, B, C.
4. Decide auction purse value among categories of players
Each team has its remaining purse for
auction. Teams need to play within their purse range. So, after deciding target
players in various categories with possible auctioned price range, purse amount
is to be divided between A, B, C categories. Based on this data, team management
can understand how far they can go in auction to get one player. This will
create auction price cut off for each and every player.
For example, each team in IPL has remaining purse after their retention and draft players finalization. Mumbai
Indians has INR 42 Cr to spend. Out of which, they may decide ratio of spend as
50% in A category (INR 21 Cr), 40% in B category (INR 17 Cr) and 10% in C
category (INR 4 Cr). This is just for an example. Each team decides its own
strategies.
5. Real time auction simulations
Auction is very dynamic and each situation
needs quick decision to make. So as last step before auction, team needs to
simulate real auction experience among team members and try to find out
observations, experiences. Also, teams can check past auction proceedings and
learn from those experiences.
Above steps are basic steps and each step
needs lot of brain storming, data gathering. It is also difficult to pick and
choose from large pool of players. After so much preparation, nobody can
confirm surely about actual proceedings at auction.
