IPL 2027 auction heads to Goa; BCCI pencils in 16 December, formal word awaited

The Indian Premier League’s player auction looks set to return to Indian soil after three years overseas. The IPL 2027 auction, a mini-auction for the coming season, has been pencilled in for Wednesday, 16 December, at the ITC Grand hotel in Goa, with a briefing for franchise representatives on 15 December.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India‘s logistics staff have passed the dates to all 10 teams so that travel and hotel bookings can begin. The BCCI has not put out a public release and franchises are still waiting for written confirmation, so the schedule could yet move.

Goa was named in September

The choice of state is not new. On 23 September BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said: “we are going to host it in Goa in the month of December.” On the same day IPL chairman Arun Dhumal said Goa had been finalised and that 15 and 16 December were the likely dates. What is new is a single auction day and a named hotel.

Because it is a mini-auction, the event is expected to be completed in one day. It will be the last auction of the current 2023-27 player cycle.

Three editions abroad

The last auction staged in India was in Kochi in December 2022. Since then the league has taken the event overseas three times in a row: to Dubai in December 2023, to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia for the mega-auction in November 2024, and to Abu Dhabi in December 2025. Goa last hosted an IPL auction in 2009.

The pencilled-in date falls on the same day as India’s second one-day international against Sri Lanka at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, part of a three-match ODI series that opens in Delhi on 13 December. The overlap means the auction will run while the national team is in action, and the board will have to manage broadcast and travel arrangements for both events.

What comes before the auction

Ahead of the sale, teams have to settle their squads. Franchises are expected to submit their lists of retained and released players by 15 November, although the BCCI has not yet notified that deadline publicly. Those lists will decide how much money each side carries into Goa.

For Hyderabad fans, Sunrisers Hyderabad have already begun reshaping their squad through the trade window. On 14 October the franchise brought back left-arm seamer T. Natarajan from Delhi Capitals, sending leg-spinner Zeeshan Ansari the other way.

A formal announcement from the BCCI on the auction date, the venue and the retention deadline is expected in the coming weeks.

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