Saturday, July 12, 2008

IPL Mixes Business, Money, Entertainment and Sports

International cricket megastars with large paychecks to match their egos, Bollywood's elite actors, big business magnates, provocatively dressed cheerleaders, the big sports media, huge worldwide audience, deep pocket sponsors all come together to put on spectacular three hour, 2020 games of the two newly formed Indian cricketing leagues.

This is a revolution in the world of cricket, a sleepy, colonial era, gentleman's game that the British brought to their colonies including India and Pakistan. Taking a leaf from the sports leagues in US and Europe, it represents a coming of age for the business of sports in India. According to the New York Times, the Indian billionaires are for the first time staking their prestige on sports teams. The Indian Premier League’s most expensive franchise, at nearly $111.9 million, is the Mumbai Indians, fittingly owned by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. The flamboyant liquor baron Vijay Mallya picked up the Bangalore-based Royal Challengers for $111.6 million, and the actor Shah Rukh Khan is backing the Kolkata Knight Riders for $75.09 million.



Forbes magazine reports that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), a nonprofit body controlling the game in the country, has racked up $1 billion to date from selling commercial rights to Indian cricket for the next five years. (One source: Nike paid $45 million to flash its logo on players' apparel and to sell garments to cricket fans.) "It's all about extracting the most value," said Lalit Modi, BCCI's new marketing chief, who hopes to eventually make $1.5 billion from Indian cricket, ten times what BCCI made in the last go-around.

IPL offered contracts to several Pakistani players including Shoaib Malik, Shoaib Akhtar, Muhammad Asif, Shahid Afridi, Younis Khan, Muhammad Yousaf and Inzamam ul Haq.

According to the BBC, the players were offered to the franchisees in an auction process. Australia captain Ponting is among 13 of his compatriots in a pool of international cricketers available to the franchises, which were allowed to spend a maximum of $5m on eight contracted players. There have been recent reports that several top Australian players have been promised the IPL's salary cap will be axed in the future. The biggest stars could then expect IPL contracts of about $15 million. Australian captain Ricky Ponting has opposed this move. "I have certainly heard there may be no salary cap next year but I'm not sure if that will be good for the IPL," Ponting told Australia's Courier Mail. "The more I've thought about it, it might be detrimental to the whole set-up.

The winning bids, which were selected electronically in a sealed room, offered Pakistani players as follows: Shoaib Akhtar $425,000, Younis Khan $225,000, Kamran Akmal $150,000 and Umar Gul $150,000. These amounts are several times larger than the current compensation they receive from PCB.

According to BBC Sports, IPL's top 10 winning auction bids in February were:

Mahendra Dhoni: $1.5m (Chennai)
Andrew Symonds: $1.35m (Hyderabad)
Sanath Jayasuriya: $975,000 (Mumbai)
Ishant Sharma: $950,000 (Kolkata)
Irfan Pathan: $925,000 (Mohali)
Brett Lee : $900,000 (Mohali)
Jacques Kallis: $900,000 (Bangalore)
RP Singh: $875,000 (Hyderabad)
Harbhajan Singh: $850,000 (Mumbai)
Chris Gayle: $800,000 (Kolkata)

4 comments:

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Unknown said...

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Riaz Haq said...

Here's are some excerpts from an interesting Op Ed by Aakar Patel on cricket:

It is thought that India loves cricket. This is incorrect. India loves India. Cricket gives us the opportunity to express this affection. The local cricket match in India is unattended. Even World Cup matches featuring two other sides will be played without spectators, no matter what the calibre of the players. This is unlike World Cup football, or American football and basketball. What attracts Indian spectators isn’t cricket the sport in that sense.
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One unique thing is how Indian spectators are silent when the other team scores. On television it’s as if the screen has gone mute. It’s not about enjoying a sport and appreciating the ability of professionals to play it. It’s about nationalism, which in India is narrow and zero-sum. If they score even a little victory, a boundary, our tumescence droops. The Bengali thinks he’s different, but this is untrue. Imminent defeat against the Lankans in 1996’s World Cup resulted in Kolkatans rioting in Eden Gardens, and, as Indians tend to do, damaging the property that they could barely afford.

The Indian team is overrated because our fierce nationalism inflates its capacity. This has been amplified recently because of our economic power. Ten years ago, opponents thought little of us, and rightly. Against the quality team, India’s record is to fold. We regularly get a thrashing from Australia (won 36, lost 61), old enemy Pakistan (47:69), and newcomers South Africa (24:40). Even West Indies, 25 years in decline, have a superior record (39:54).

Usually, Indians are happy if their team wins the skirmish and loses the battle. This is because national honour is often safeguarded by the hero. The astute Ian Chappell noticed that Indians were content if Sachin Tendulkar scored his hundred even if India then lost. In Australia, this would never happen, he said, and it would be seen as defeat, which it is. Since his audience telegraphs this, the Indian cricketer plays for himself much more than players of other sides. An analysis of Tendulkar’s scoring pattern between 90 and 100 will be interesting.
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The Indian is deeply prejudiced against Africans and black players have always been targeted (some will be offended by this sweeping allegation. I am open to the suggestion that the Indian is an equal-opportunity vandal). A bottle hit Vasbert Drakes at Rajkot in 2002. This sort of thing has now stopped. Why? Because Indian spectators are watched over, like inmates.

On all Indian grounds, a wire mesh now separates players from the unpredictable Indian audience. This is shameful, but passes unnoticed in our culture. In Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies and England, this isn’t needed.
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Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri are second rate: no lucidity, little insight and speaking only in stock phrase and cliche. In Shastri’s case, this is often incorrect cliche: “You can be rest assured...” Sanjay Manjrekar is better and so, though more evidence is needed, is Sourav Ganguly.

Navjot Singh Sidhu is original, and perfect for Indians. He’s Wodehousian, spouting rubbish with an air of magnificence. A sort of developing world’s Psmith. It is why he’s so popular with us, because the equation is: content < spectacle. Harsha Bhogle works on his language, and is committed enough to wear a hairpiece, but he’s fluffy and boring—a unique double whammy. If we must have fluff, I prefer Mandira Bedi. Lovely body and she puts it on display well.
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For Indian players this has meant more cash—vast sums from advertising. For Indian spectators it has meant more advertising. Advertisements between overs, advertisements between balls. Intrusive, invasive, relentless, shameless flogging. Strokes renamed by sponsors, sixes renamed after sponsors. Such vulgarity is not off-putting to Indians, which is why it continues and has increased in time.

Riaz Haq said...

Here's BBC's Soutik Biswas on falling IPL ratings:

If TV ratings figures are to be believed, fans have had enough of cricket despite the nine-team, 76-match, seven-week Twenty20 tourney.

Viewer ratings were down 18.7% in the first six games - a time when interest in the tournament traditionally peaks - compared with the same period last year.

That's not all. Season V began on a wrong note with a tawdry Bollywood song-and-dance opening show which even appears to have put off fans. Two top sponsors have withdrawn. Brand and communication consultants are warning that the IPL brand is in "choppy waters", and the league needs a "stronger game plan to rejuvenate the brand". One brand consultancy firm has downgraded the league's value to $3.67bn, down 11% from 2010.

Remember, the response to IPL Season IV last year was lukewarm. TV ratings dropped by 29% and even the final met a tepid response. Cricket fans were savouring India's spectacular win in the World Cup which preceded the tournament, and had little appetite for more cricket.

Why is the thrill gone this year - at least in the early stages of the tournament? After all, this is the tournament which combines the sublime (sledgehammer batting, close finishes) and the ridiculous (Bollywood entertainment, cheerleaders, "strategic time outs" in the middle of the games to facilitate advertising breaks). Indians love tamasha (entertainment), and the IPL is still the best tamasha on offer.

For one, after the song and dances are over, it's finally all about cricket. India is still licking its wounds after a nightmarish international season in which it lost eight overseas Test matches on the trot - its worst run since the 1960s. Though Sachin Tendulkar's 100th international hundred in Dhaka last month was a welcome diversion, India failed to pick up the Asia Cup. Don't disrespect the fan, Rahul Dravid eloquently said at last year's Bradman Oration, and to expect fans to flock to cheer non-performing cricketers at the highest level is a bit fey.

Also, Indian stars are the league's biggest draw, and most of them have been performing indifferently or are absent in the ongoing edition. Tendulkar is hurt after the first game, and Sehwag and Dhoni, two big hitters, haven't fired yet. VVS Laxman isn't playing this season. Yuvraj Singh is recovering from cancer and is out of the game for a while. Saurav Ganguly's batting is past its sell-by date. Rahul Dravid is playing a post-retirement nostalgia gig. Yusuf Pathan, a Twenty20 star, has fizzled out. When the stars are largely down and out, fans stay away.

Fans also seem to be confused about whom to support. The IPL is a city-based league aiming to build up fan bases in half-a-dozen big Indian cities. But when Calcutta's icon Saurav Ganguly, Delhi's favourite Gautam Gambhir and Bangalore's biggest star Rahul Dravid end up leading the teams of Pune, Calcutta and Rajasthan, fan loyalties to home teams can begin to fray easily.

Interest will possibly pick up during the knockouts and the final at the fag end of the league. It may even pick up with more high-scoring games, edge-of-the-seat finishes, and big-bang batting by the stars.

But authorities simply cannot afford to let the IPL crash.

Listen to Sharda Ugra, India's top cricket writer, and you know why. "The IPL has now become a key component of world cricket's economy," she writes. "If it falters and fails because it is not alert to the audience climate around it, the domino effect around the cricket world will be damaging. Cricket's superstar status in many parts of its empire will be downgraded from club class to cattle class - all holy cows included."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17699415