APL 4.0 Auction: Setting the Tone

The latest season of APL is back this year, and is set to take place on the 12^th and 13^th of April. The Ashoka Premier League, started 4 years ago has now become one of Ashoka’s biggest trademark events which is eagerly looked forward to by the entire University. APL 4.0 is larger than ever with 16 teams vying for the championship, with team owners and players spread out over all the programs of Ashoka as well as the faculty and staff. Team owners can range from anywhere between 1 to 5 for each team and the total players taking part in this edition of APL were around 120.

A big pre cursor to the main competition is the APL auction that took place on the 2^nd of April with all the glamour one would expect of such a large event. The auction involves team owners bidding on the players, who are divided across various tiers and forming the best team they possible can with each team getting 120 million in fictitious money. The auction this time was also one of the biggest with the players being divided amongst 7 tiers which are the Legendary tier, wildcard tier and tiers 1 to 5. The auction format was divided into 2 with the legendary as well as 1 to 3 tiers being the form of open bidding, while tiers 4,5 and wildcard were a closed, second price auction format. The second format involved owners sending anonymous bids with the highest amount winning the bid but the amount paid would be that of the second highest. The rules of the auction covered every possible scenario and the teams had been instructed on the required details such as each team had to have a minimum of 8 players and a maximum of 9 as well each team was required to have at least 1 female player. The top 3 teams from APL 3.0 were also given a right to match, where once the bidding is closed for a player, any of these 3 teams can use their right to match a single time, to obtain the player that just got sold for the same price.The order of the auction contained different tiers throughout ensuring fairness as well as the need for strategy when bidding for players as well some of the tiers having a base price set for each player. The order of tiers was 10 wildcard, 10 tier 3, legendary tier, 5 tier 1, 6 tier 5, 10 tier 4, 10 tier 3, 8 tier 2, 10 wildcard, 9 tier 5, 10 tier 4, 9 tier 3, 8 tier 2, 10 wildcard, 11 tier 4, 5 tier 1 and 5 tier 5. The auction had Vihan Singh as the host who kept the participants as well as the audience entertained throughout the 3 hour event along with the presentation slides of the players filled with witty captions. After a few hours of furious bidding, filled with intense competition amongst the teams and many changes in strategy and plans, all the players were sold and the teams finally taking shape. Krishaang Verma, a tier 1 defender was sold to Sonepat Studs for 70 million which was the highest any player had gone for in this auction. At the end of the auction, the owners were given 10 minutes to make up to 2 trades and the auction finally ended with the teams being pretty even and each owner satisfied.

The final team list is given below, courtesy of the APL 4.0 organisers.

The tournament format consists of 16 teams being divided into 4 groups with 4 teams each. Each team plays all the other teams in their group with the top 2 teams in each group qualifying from the group stages to the knockout stages. The team draws took place on the 9^th of April with quite some fan fare and the tournament stage has been finally set for the upcoming weekend.

The table below shows the 4 groups and the teams that belong in each group:

APL 4.0 is right around the corner and the teams are all raring to go to win the ultimate prize this weekend on the 12^th and 13^th of April. With practice matches taking place and strategies being drawn, this guarantees to be an exciting event. The auction gave us a glimpse of what to expect and also set the tone for the league this year while also making sure the hype around this huge event won’t die out. Now that all the details are done and dusted, there is only the main event left to look forward to, so make sure you turn up to support the teams and cheer on the players as they put up an amazing showing that is the standard of the Ashoka Premier League.