Hosting the HBL PSL anywhere but Pakistan will be a financial disaster

The idea that the ninth edition of the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) would be held outside Pakistan was first soft-launched as early as May this year. Reports began to emerge that the PCB, then under the managerial control of Najam Sethi, wanted to shift the tournament to the United Arab Emirates seemingly to attract more foreign players and cut down on some of the administrative and hosting costs involved in conducting the tournament in pakistan. 

Unsurprisingly the franchises involved in the HBL PSL were not particularly enthused by this arrangement. Already for the past couple of years, there has been growing resentment within some of the franchises over the tournament’s business model. A decision to shift the tournament to the UAE or any other country for that matter could further increase the rift between the board and the team owners.

How the money is made 

It is a pretty simple concept really. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is the organising body that operates the HBL PSL. As the organiser, the PCB makes a big chunk of their money through franchise fees. That means the board sells the rights to these teams to the team owners who then pay a set annual fee. There are currently six teams in the HBL PSL with Multan having the highest franchise fee at a yearly $6.35 million and the lowest being Quetta Gladiators at $1.1 million per year. Overall, the PCB rakes in $15.65 million a year just from franchise fees. 

In addition to this, the tournament brings home the bacon for the PCB by selling tickets, selling sponsorships, and selling the broadcasting rights to the matches. In 2022, the cricket board sold the local broadcasting rights for the tournament to a consortium of ARY and PTV for the hefty price of $25 million for a two year period. Similarly, the title sponsorship, which has belonged to HBL since the beginning of the tournament, was sold to them again until 2025 for nearly $22.5 million (and this is only the title sponsorship, which means the revenue from other sponsors has not been factored in.) For the last edition of the tournament, the cricket board reported a profit worth Rs 2 billion which was split between the teams.

In exchange for all of this the PCB is responsible for providing the venue and other organisational matters for the tournament to be successfully conducted. But perhaps one of the biggest costs for the board is the provision of security. Remember, the HBL PSl started off by being hosted in the UAE and has gradually shifted entirely to Pakistan. And while this has bolstered the tournament’s reputation with fans filling up stadiums, the PCB has been growingly unhappy with the high costs they have to pay for security. A very public dispute with the Punjab Government during the last tournament over covering police costs illustrated this. 

Why the tournament needs to stay put 

This year the PCB has proposed that the tournament, or at least a part of it, be hosted in the UAE. The reason they have given is that elections are scheduled for February and providing security during this time would be impossible. The unfortunate part is that the international cricket schedule is so tight the tournament cannot easily be shifted to a different time and neither can the general elections be postponed for this reason. 

On top of this the PCB will be happy because the cost of security will not be as much of an issue. If the tournament is in the UAE or South Africa, the costs of hiring grounds and finding staff will still not eclipse the cost of providing adequate security. The franchises, however, strongly disagree with this. 

For a while there has been rising resentment within some of the franchises over what they see as an inequitable business model. To put this into context, if you are an HBL PSL franchise you need to pay the franchise fee to the PCB, pay your players, pay staff, and also spend on marketing. The money you make in exchange for this comes from brand endorsements and other sources that are largely marketing based. They also make money from a central revenue pool that the PCB manages every year. Essentially, all of the earnings from broadcasting, media, and advertising are pooled together and divided between the teams and the PCB. There has been a lot of back and forth over this revenue pool but as things stand 95% of this pool is divided equally between the teams and the remaining 5% is pocketed by the PCB. 

But even this is proving difficult to manage. Some of the bigger teams like Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad which have higher costs and higher franchise fees feel this is unfair and have been advocating for a new business model that would make the revenue regional. 

Allow us to explain. Some of the larger teams are banking on the fact that the league will eventually adopt a regional revenue model where each team collects the profits from their respective regions. This means that if, for example, a match is hosted in Multan all of the proceeds from it will go to the Multan Sultans — everything from broadcasting to gate receipts and advertising. Similarly if Multan goes to play a game in Lahore then the Qalandars will reap the rewards. 

Of course there are problems with this. Peshawar is far from hosting any HBL PSL matches right now despite a push from Javed Afridi and Quetta is a continued problem. Suggestions have been made that Quetts play their home games in Karachi but that might be contested by the Kings management. 

What we do have, however, is a scenario in which many franchises are already unhappy with the PCB. While the board might want to shift the tournament to a different country to cut costs this year, it will cost them dearly in the long run. The confidence of investors, which is what franchise owners are at the end of the day, will not be bolstered by this. And with fresh auctions for team ownership coming in the next couple of years, the PCB would do well to remember the HBL PSL is a long-term investment that needs to be run with an eye on the future.