| This week I asked my friend, India’s eminent sports journalist Sharda Ugra to write on how the inaugural Women’s Premier League will be a game-changer for all women athletes. Hint: it’s all about the money, honey. Read on... The Big Story WPL: Showing us the money  Mumbai Indians skipper Harmanpreet Kaur along with teammates celebrate with the Women’s Premier League 2023 trophy. (Source: ANI) By Sharda Ugra Not sure how many noticed, but in his introduction of the captains on the opening night of IPL 2023, Ravi Shastri called out Hardik Pandya’s name as, “captain of the Gujarat Giants.” Pandya is captain of a Gujarati team, defending IPL champions, Gujarat Titans. The Giants are another squad from Gujarat who just played in the Women’s Premier League (WPL). The same mistake is highly unlikely to happen again over the next two months, but the Giants owners can allow themselves a giggle. Rarely is a women’s sports team top of mind over any men’s team, so the instant must be enjoyed. In a few months the WPL has set in motion the growth of a previously non-existent ecosystem around Indian women’s sport. Over the next few years, we will witness a surge in cricket's ancillary industries which should feature more women in coaching, umpiring, scoring, training, data analytics, marketing and, the most-resisted, active administration. The top women cricketers first received BCCI contracts only in 2015 and in October last year, the BCCI announced equal match fees for the men’s and women’s teams. Until India made the 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup final in England, there was no clear contender for the country’s top women’s sports team. After WPL, there will be no doubt. Two factors are at work here: The first, the money available to women at the top and the second, that this money comes from franchises, outside of the board’s own financial structures. With more playing spots available following an increase in, hopefully, the number of WPL teams, it is only fair to imagine that the first choice of sport for the country's best female athletes could shift to cricket. Missing: Match fees There are still many ructions on in world sport about pay parity – equal match fees or prize money between men and women. Only last May, US Soccer became the first national body in world football to announce equal match fees and bonuses for its men’s and women’s national teams. In India, the idea of match fees plus structured bonuses does not exist even in cricket. What exists are ad-hoc announcement of match fee increases and grand largesse cash thrown around following any success. But Indian athletes from other team sport will laugh at such complaining because they get no match fees any way. Volleyball teams in the past have paid for their own tickets to international events. In a 2005 interview, KPS Gill, head of Indian hockey had said, “I don’t want to give match fees because I think it is wrong concept… It is bribery in another way… it is cent percent bribery. But we do pay the players, we help them find jobs.” There are very few exceptions. While in camp, Rugby India pays its players a daily stipend, apart from taking care of meals and kit expenses, ensuring that the players leave a camp with money in hand. The practice is not commonly followed or and is not available to most other athletes, like hockey players for example. The money trickles in  (Image source: insidesport.in) In August 2021, the Odisha government increased its five-year Rs 50 crore sponsorship for Hockey India by another five years. The maths against regular structured match fees is just not adding up. Last November, Hockey India announced that players would receive cash incentives for winning: Rs 50,000 each to every player and Rs 25,000 for support staff for each win. It is still not a match fee. In December, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) said that they would introduce match fees for the first time for the men’s and women’s teams, dependant on the AIFF increasing its financial resources. While football clubs pay its players wages to sustain them, hockey players and athletes from other sport play and earn income from their employers, usually public sector companies. The creation of a professional club or league structure, which is largely ignored by most Indian sports bodies, will to a degree free the athletes’ economic dependence on the state or sports federations. Why, even the world’s biggest cricket league is still not professional enough to give its homegrown male cricketers the freedom to play for other clubs in overseas leagues. Until the creation of the WPL our women cricketers have played in Australian and English leagues. But the arrival of the WPL’s big money, those doors are likely to close. What the well-paid men can’t do, why should the well-paid women be ‘allowed’ to? | 
