Cricket goes to Bollywood

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has become one of the richest sports bodies in the world, its annual income exceeding the turnover of a large number of private companies.

IT IS raining money on Indian cricket. The Board of Control for Cricket in India, the governing body of the game, will rake in over 50 billion rupees (RM4.1bil) over the next three years from the domestic Twenty20 cricket league alone.

The rights to regional teams for the Indian Premier League (IPL) were recently auctioned to a group of industrialists and film stars.

A brand new version of the “pyjama cricket”, the IPL will also enrich cricket stars beyond their wildest dreams with remuneration of each Indian and foreign player running into seven to eight figures for a 44-day-long championship.

The country’s richest industrialist, Mukesh Ambani of the Reliance Group of Industries; the reigning Khan of Bollywood, Shah Rukh; and top liquor manufacturer Vijay Mallya were among the successful bidders for regional IPL franchises.

Ambani bid the highest amount of 4.41 billion rupees (RM364mil) for Mumbai. Mallya got hometown Bangalore for 4.4 billion rupees (RM363mil), and Shah Rukh with former actress Juhi Chawla bagged Calcutta for 2.96 billion rupees (RM244mil).

There was another Bollywood winner in actress Preity Zinta who with industrialist boyfriend Ness Wadia won Mohali (Punjab) for three billion rupees (RM248mil). Chennai went to a cement manufacturer, while Hyderabad was bagged by a local newspaper group. A construction company won the right to the Delhi team.

Beginning April 18, eight teams will compete for the IPL trophy and a cash prize of more than 160 million rupees (RM13.2mil). Each team will play 14 matches, seven at home and seven away.

To be played under floodlights in eight cities across the country over 44 days, the IPL aims to inject the razzmatazz and pomp and ceremony associated with American basketball and football.

The off-the-field entertainment quotient will be high in order to attract spectators and to engage television audiences.

Each franchisee will have to buy players, domestic and foreign, and invest in coaches, managers, ground staff, promotion, hiring of the stadiums, security and so on.

Each team can hire up to four foreign players. But icon stars associated with cities will have to play for their local teams.

For instance, Sachin Tendulkar will play for Ambani’s Mumbai while Saurav Ganguly will do duty for Shah Rukh Khan’s Calcutta and Rahul Dravid for Mallya’s Bangalore.

Besides, the franchisee will have to pay a minimum wage of two million rupees (RM165,000) to each player in the 16-man squad per season, though in reality the cost could be much higher due to the bidding for star players.

The auctions for players are being held this month. However, the top players bound to play on their home grounds would not be auctioned, but their price will be fixed at 15% higher than the most expensive player in the auction.

The BCCI will share a part of the revenue from television rights, merchandise, gate money and promotional/sponsorship receipts with the franchisees.

More than 70 foreign players have already signed up, among them Australian ace fast bowler Brett Lee and a number of top players from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa and so on.

The legendary Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne, who retired this year, is also set to play in the IPL, with the bidding for him starting at more than 30 million rupees (RM2.5mil).

The injection of private capital into cricket was a decision forced on the BCCI. The placid nabobs of Indian cricket, quite content with the upturn in its fortunes due to the rise of the ball-to-ball television commentary on private channels, were jolted out of their complacency by an ambitious businessman.

Subhash Chandra Goel of Zee Television networks took everyone by surprise when he announced the launch of the rival Indian Cricket League (ICL).

Goel hired former Indian captain Kapil Dev as his pointsman and undertook an aggressive campaign to buy foreign and Indian players. Several greats of yesteryears from home and abroad were signed up.

Finding its monopoly over the game challenged, the BCCI lost no time in declaring Goel’s ICL illegal.

It also threatened to blacklist any player associated with the ICL. Further, it denied the ICL the use of cricket grounds for holding matches.

To effectively counter the ICL, the BCCI soon came up with the Twenty20 league, and did one better by deciding to auction regional franchises to the highest bidders.

Given the immense popularity of the game and the social cache attached to owning a team of star-players, billionaire industrialists, newspaper magnates and film stars entered the fray.

The successful bidders now own the regional IPL franchise for the next 10 years and they will pay one-tenth of the bidding amount each year over the next decade.

Following the IPL auction, the BCCI has become one of the richest sports bodies in the world. Its annual income now exceeds the turnover of a large number of private companies.

Corporate cricket being all about money, each season IPL teams collectively would have to generate a minimum revenue of seven trillion rupees (RM578bil) for their owners to recoup the expenses – though there are those who believe that the Ambanis and the Mallyas have bought themselves showpieces, and they couldn’t really bother about the money.

Meanwhile, connoisseurs of the game complain that the IPL will lead to further commercialisation of cricket. They were already chafing at the Twenty20 format and now the auctioning of players has hurt their sensibilities.

“Cricketers have now become mercenaries,” lamented a former national player.

On the converse, many feel that money could play a salutary role in improving the quality of cricket.

“If privately-owned football clubs in England can provide first-rate national players, why not an Ambani-owned team with the best professional aides churning out world-beaters in cricket?” argued a sports writer.

Better coaching facilities and better monetary incentives could help nurture cricket talent. The IPL would lead to professionalisation of Indian cricket and help discover and hone local talent.

Source : http://thestar.com.my/