CPL introduces pre-draft marquee signing

The Caribbean Premier League has introduced a host of changes to the player draft format, including the signing of one 'marquee' player per franchise as a free agent before the draft happens. Franchises have already begun negotiations, the results of which will be known in January.

As a result, the number of players that a franchise can retain ahead of the draft has been reduced from four to three, while the size of the squad has been increased to 17 from the previous limit of 16.

In a first for the CPL, the 2015 season saw players from the ICC Americas region given development contracts, and this season will include one guaranteed contract per franchise for players specifically from the region.

The salary cap for each franchise has also been increased to USD 780,000 from 600,000 to help pick a maximum of five overseas players, instead of four. The number of players that should compulsorily reside in the location of the franchise has also been reduced by half - from four to two.

"Our aim each year is to make CPL even bigger and better so that we can attract the best T20 players in the world and make it as entertaining as possible for the fans," Tom Moody, director of the CPL, said. "Over the past few months we've worked alongside the franchise owners to make sure that the 2016 player draft is open and competitive so that the buzz and excitement of CPL will start building from January right through to the tournament launch in the summer.

"From early January 2016 we'll start to reveal the franchise marquee players and the retained players so that by the time the draft comes around in February fans will already have plenty to talk about," Moody said.