IPL 2026 Auction: Rajasthan Royals reveal their auction playbook with fans

In a league where teams treat auction strategy like state secrets, Rajasthan Royals have done the opposite – they’ve put the HunaRR of their data-loving fans at the centre of the story.

Through the SupeRR Selector Hackathon, the Royals turned a usually closed, backroom process into a challenge for students, young professionals and early-career analysts.

More than 7,500 people signed up, and around 1,500 of them went all the way and built full analytical submissions using real cricket data. From there, 16 finalists were invited to the Royals’ Mumbai office for a day that felt less like a contest and more like stepping into the team’s strategy room.

By the end of the day, three winners – Abhishek Akula (IIT Madras), Nitin Rajasekar (IIIT Hyderabad) and Sainath Reddy (IIIT Raipur) – stood out for the clarity, depth and originality of their thinking. Their reward was very real: they travelled to Abu Dhabi as Rajasthan Royals’ fan representatives at the Indian T20 League auction, witness a behind-the-scenes view of how the auction day actually works, and presented their case studies to Kumar Sangakkara and Giles Lindsay.

For the Royals, SupeRR Selector isn’t just a fun one-off campaign. It’s an innovation lab powered by fan talent – a way to let fresh ideas, new methods and different perspectives challenge how things have always been done. 

The initiative also sits comfortably within a broader pattern in how the Royals approach talent. The franchise has a history of identifying and backing potential early — whether that’s on the field with players or off the field through initiatives like this, which give young analytical minds a chance to be part of the conversation.

In a first for Indian cricket, an auction playbook hasn’t just stayed locked in a room – it’s been turned into a challenge, a classroom, and a talent pipeline, all driven by the HunaRR of fans who love the numbers as much as the game.