When Royal Challengers Bangalore paid ₹3.4 crore for Smriti Mandhana at the first Women’s Premier League auction in February 2023, the economics of women’s cricket changed in a single afternoon. No women’s cricketer had ever commanded a fee close to it, and dozens of players — Indian domestic cricketers among them — walked away from that auction with contracts worth more than they had earned in their entire careers. The WPL arrived as the women’s counterpart to the IPL, and within three seasons it has become the wealthiest and most consequential league in the women’s game.
How the League Is Built
The WPL launched with five city-based franchises: Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Gujarat Giants and UP Warriorz. Three of the five are owned by the same groups that run their IPL namesakes, which gave the league instant brand recognition, established academies and professional support staff from day one. The franchise fees paid to the Indian board for those five teams ran into hundreds of millions of dollars collectively — a statement of commercial confidence in a league that had not yet bowled a ball.
The playing format is a double round-robin: each side meets every other twice, producing twenty league matches, followed by a short, sharp playoff structure. The table-topper advances directly to the final, while the second and third-placed sides contest an eliminator for the other place. With only five teams, every league match carries weight — one bad week can end a campaign — and the compressed schedule, played across a small number of Indian venues in a February–March window, keeps the tournament inside a month.
Champions So Far — and One Team’s Heartbreak
Mumbai Indians won the inaugural title in 2023 under Harmanpreet Kaur, beating Delhi Capitals in the final, with England’s Nat Sciver-Brunt anchoring the middle order and Hayley Matthews providing all-round balance. Royal Challengers Bangalore took the 2024 crown — Mandhana lifting the franchise’s first senior trophy in any format, a moment with resonance far beyond the women’s game given RCB’s famously barren IPL history. Mumbai reclaimed the title in 2025, again at Delhi Capitals’ expense.
That gives the league’s early history a defined shape: two powerhouses in Mumbai and Bangalore, and in Delhi Capitals a side good enough to reach the first three finals and unfortunate enough to lose them all. Sustained excellence without a trophy is a familiar T20 franchise story, and how Delhi respond — hold their core or rebuild — is one of the league’s genuine ongoing narratives.
Why the WPL Matters Beyond India
The league’s gravitational pull on the global game was immediate. The world’s best players — Australians, English, South Africans, West Indians — now build their calendars around the WPL window, and national boards schedule series to accommodate it, treatment previously reserved for the men’s IPL. For overseas stars, a WPL deal can dwarf a central contract; for the ICC and its member boards, the league functions as proof that women’s cricket can carry serious broadcast value, strengthening the case for investment everywhere.
The deeper effect is on India’s own pipeline. Uncapped Indian players share dressing rooms with the best cricketers alive, and several have translated WPL performances directly into international selection. The tournament has done for young Indian batters and spinners what decades of domestic cricket struggled to do: given them high-pressure, high-quality match play with full stadiums and television scrutiny. The longer arc of the women’s game — from unpaid pioneers to this — is worth understanding in full, and the history of women’s cricket makes the scale of the change unmistakable. Australia’s WBBL spent years as the standard-bearer among women’s T20 leagues, and comparing the two — the WBBL’s depth and maturity against the WPL’s financial power — mirrors the way the Big Bash’s structure shaped men’s franchise cricket outside India.
The Cricket Itself
On the field, the WPL quickly developed its own character. Scoring rates climbed season on season as batters adapted to true pitches and short boundaries, and the league has become a showcase for power hitting in the women’s game — while remaining, in Indian conditions, a spinner’s tournament at heart. Leg-spinners and left-arm orthodox bowlers dominate the wicket charts, and the middle overs are where matches are decided far more often than at the death. Teams that manage spin best, on both sides of the ball, have contested every final so far.
Tactically the league runs on the same grammar as all elite T20: powerplay intent, matchup-based bowling changes, and the constant tension between preserving wickets and maximising the first six overs — the calculus at the centre of any T20 powerplay batting strategy. What the WPL has added is visibility: decisions that once played out in front of sparse crowds are now dissected by full broadcast teams, which has accelerated the tactical maturity of the entire player pool.
What to Watch as the League Grows
Three questions will define the WPL’s next phase. Expansion: five teams is the smallest viable league, and pressure to add franchises — with the new player opportunities that brings — will only grow. Windows: the tournament remains far shorter than the men’s IPL, and lengthening it means renegotiating an already crowded international calendar. And depth: the gap between the league’s best XI and its fringe players is still wide, which is precisely the gap the WPL exists to close. Whatever the answers, the founding point stands — the afternoon Mandhana’s price flashed up on the auction screen, women’s cricket stopped being a cause and became a career.
Related: 10 Analytical Insights into The Big Bash League Explained: Structure, Stars, Strategies, and Impact
Frequently Asked Questions
How many teams started the WPL?
The inaugural season featured five city‑based franchises: Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Gujarat Giants, and UP Warriorz, each representing major Indian metropolitan regions and backed by established cricketing organisations.
What was the record auction fee in 2023?
At the first WPL auction in February 2023, Indian opener Smriti Mandhana fetched ₹3.4 crore, setting the highest ever fee for a women’s cricketer and reshaping the league’s financial landscape.
Which IPL owners also own WPL franchises?
Three of the five franchises are owned by the same groups that operate their IPL counterparts: Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, and Royal Challengers Bangalore, providing immediate brand recognition and shared resources across both men’s and women’s leagues.
What format does the WPL use?
The competition follows a double round‑robin structure, where each of the five teams plays every other side twice, resulting in a total of 40 matches before the playoffs determine the season’s champion.
