The Nepal Premier League (NPL), a professional Twenty20 or T20 franchise tournament, concluded late last year at the Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur. The league was promoted as proof that Nepal’s sports economy had come of age. Sponsors invested heavily, crowds packed the stands, and it was celebrated as a national success story.

For sports journalist Binod Pandey, the tournament represents something larger: the shaping of a new and confident national identity.

"Everyone, regardless of their age and backgrounds, has shown great interest. Especially since in our federal system where people haven’t always been able to take ownership, and now they are owning their provinces by supporting these teams. I think it has shown that your community is above everything else," Pandey told Sapan News over a phone conversation.

For most matches, tickets sold out online within minutes of release. Yet a couple of hours before kickoff, the crowds outside the stadium told a different story. Fans who had failed to secure seats still lined up at the ticket counter, hoping for last-minute open spots. Some checked their phones compulsively. Others argued with security guards who had long stopped explaining that there were no tickets left.

Dust hung in the air. The smell of sweat, fried snacks, and exhaust fumes mixed with the sound of whistles, shouted prices, and the distant thump of music from inside the stadium. This was the economy of anticipation, running parallel to the game itself.

Informal economy

Wrapped tightly in a Sudurpaschim Royals flag, the flag-seller Sandesh Dubaju, 19 years old, moved easily through the crowd, smiling, joking, calling out to strangers like old friends. He sold each flag for 150 NPR, keeping roughly a hundred rupees in profit per piece. On a good day, he told us, he managed to sell 15 to 20. It was a decent haul, but not structured employment. Sandesh wanted to be part of Nepal’s Gen Z ‘revolution’ last year, but family pressure kept him home. Now he is preparing for a language exam, with plans to apply for a work visa in Japan.

Sandesh was part of the NPL’s unofficial commerce ecosystem. The question is whether he represents economic opportunity or the familiar ceiling young Nepalis hit before looking abroad.

The sports journalist Binod Pandey estimated that the total amount that circulated within the league in 2024 and 2025 was around 100 crore NPR (approx 6.9 million USD) each. “One franchise team typically spends around 8 to 10 crore, meaning the eight teams collectively spend between 60 to 80 crore NPR, while the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) spends an additional 30 to 40 crore NPR,” Pandey explains.

Pandey estimated that CAN had generated marketing revenue of around 15 to 20 crore NPR, while individual franchises might have scored 3 to 5 crore NPR each, through sponsors. However, he was cautious about the future. While he called NPL very encouraging and a "capable brand" that could put Nepal on the global stage, he doubted the domestic market's ability to sustain further expansion. "I feel CAN and the franchises could invite multinational companies into the NPL," he told Sapan News.

Spectacle vs structure

Avash Ghimire, commentator and sports podcaster, saw NPL not just as a spectacle but a genuine commercial breakthrough. He argued that the league had unlocked domestic capital that had never before considered sports a viable investment.

“We saw new brands, new corporate houses who previously never ventured into sports joining hands with NPL and its teams,” he said.

To him, this shift mattered. It suggested growing confidence that sports could be profitable within Nepal, not just abroad.

But Ghimire was clear-eyed about the limits. As long as the NPL functioned as an event rather than an industry, its economic ceiling remained low. Reliance on a single venue restricts regional fan engagement and local sponsorship. Administrative dependence on the Cricket Association creates uncertainty.

For long-term stability, he argued, the league needs structural independence. “CAN has to act as a regulatory body,” Ghimire said. “An independent NPL league body should be formed with its own CEO, commercials, and operations.” Without that separation, the NPL risked remaining a spectacle that circulates money at the top but struggles to distribute it below.

That gap is clearest outside the stadium gates.

Sunita Shrestha, a pani puri vendor in her 30s, pushed her cart from Boje Pokhari to Kirtipur every morning during NPL. She thought that NPL crowds would equal good business. But the numbers betrayed the hope. On good days, she barely scraped 2,000 NPR (13.8 USD). She laughed tiredly while saying this: “Bhid ta thulo cha, tara khane manche kam nai aauchan” –‘the crowd is huge but not many people stop by my counter.’

The NPL created headlines, but for Sunita, the rising sports economy looked suspiciously like the same old hustle, just in a louder neighborhood.

Binod Kathayat, in his early 20s, is a Pathao (a ride-sharing app) driver, except during the NPL season. In 2024, his brilliant idea was helmet storage for people who came on two-wheelers and wanted to keep their helmets somewhere safe while enjoying the games inside the stadium. Forty minutes of marketing, and he and two friends were suddenly the unofficial custodians of 150 helmets per match, 7,500 NPR for one game. On double game days, they earned more than some entry-level office jobs.

This year, the authorities shut that down. So, Kathayat improvised again, setting up a tea stall with his friends. Determination: high. Institutional support: zero.

Inside the stadium, he felt the energy of Nepal that could be something big in the sports economy. Outside, as he got harassed by police while trying to re-enter after buying more stall inventories (like gas cylinders, milk or sugar), he would reckon the Nepal that exists today. His stall was part of NPL's micro-economy, no doubt. But was it sustainable? Does it uplift the condition of Nepalese youth? Or did it just offer a seasonal Band-Aid over deeper youth frustrations?

Sporting Revolution

The Nepal Premier League has undeniably changed the atmosphere in this Himalayan nation. It has brought light to Kirtipur nightlife, sponsors to scoreboards, and pride to fans starved of large-scale sporting events. It has also created pockets of income, moments of possibility, and glimpses of what a sports economy could look like.

But for temporary vendors like Sandesh, Sunita, and Binod, the league’s impact stops short of transformation. Their stories suggest not a new economy, but a louder version of the old one. Energetic, improvised, and temporary.

According to Ghimire, these early hustles are already producing a generation of young professionals learning sports management, broadcasting, logistics, and data analytics on the job. He also noted that some profits are being channeled back into grassroots initiatives like the Jay Trophy, a two-day red-ball cricket tournament aimed at strengthening Nepal’s talent pipeline.

And he was blunt about what was missing. Without government policy that formally recognised sports as an industry, growth will remain uneven and vulnerable.

The scale of state priorities is also visible in bricks and floodlights. The Tribhuvan University Cricket Ground in Kirtipur, where the NPL 2025 took place, seats around 10,000. It has been undergoing a major two-phase expansion to become an international-standard premier league venue with floodlights for day-night matches and seating for up to 25,000-30,000 spectators.

The renovated venue will have new concrete parapets and improved facilities, with phase one, which recently hosted the NPL under lights, by late 2025. The estimated cost of phase two renovations is around NPR 10 billion (69 million USD).

Bhabana Sharma, a Tribhuvan University economics student who lives in a girls' hostel right outside the Phase One stadium, expressed concerns over the stadium's expansion. She said it would disrupt the academic environment from significant crowds, traffic congestion and noise.

This designation of university land for a national sport also raises questions about national priorities over essential academic infrastructure expansion. This stadium, with such a huge occupancy, would generate enormous amounts of waste and sanitation issues in the university area unless it is rigorously regulated and monitored.

The NPL may be powering the temporary opportunities for players, stadium personnel, event managers and vendors. The question is whether Nepal is willing to build the institutions, policies, and protections needed to carry that power forward. 

(The author is an economics student and a freelance researcher from Nepal who volunteers with the Southasia Peace Action Network. By special arrangement with Sapan)