How HCACT ran a 14-team, Rs. 16.8 crore cricket player auction for the first time

The event

HCACT came into its first season with the largest auction in the group: 14 teams, 238 players, and a total pool of Rs. 16.8 crore. Each team owner held Rs. 1.2 crore. The auction ran on 31 December 2025.

The challenge

HCACT was running its first-ever player auction. There was no prior playbook, no established format, and no room for a disputed bid or a purse miscalculation in front of 14 team owners with real money on the line. An auction at this scale with 14 competing owners, crore-value purses, and nearly 250 player records was operationally out of reach without the right infrastructure. LeagueStage was the reason this auction could happen at all.

How LeagueStage ran the auction

LeagueStage managed the full event from setup to close. The player pool of 238 was configured across all roles and categories. Fourteen team purses were tracked in real time. Rules for squad caps, purse limits, and retentions were enforced automatically on every sale.

• Player pool configured across all roles and categories
• Real-time purse tracking for 14 teams
• Automatic enforcement of squad caps and purse limits
• Broadcast screen with live player photos and stats
• Real-time animation of every sale

The result

The highest bid of the day was Rs. 16,00,000. Two teams spent their entire Rs. 1.2 crore purse. One team closed with Rs. 7,75,000 still in hand, showing the most measured approach in the room. The auction was a complete success, proving LeagueStage could handle the largest and most complex player auction HCACT had ever run.

About LeagueStage

LeagueStage is a live player auction platform built for cricket leagues, IPL-format corporate tournaments, and diaspora leagues. It replaces spreadsheets and manual tracking with a real-time, broadcast-ready auction system where every bid is logged, every team's purse updates live, and the projected screen looks like a produced sports broadcast.