IPL: Perfect brew of opportunity, sport, entertainment, and money

IPL: Perfect brew of opportunity, sport, entertainment, and money

The instant success of the IPL set in motion significant changes in the sport. The league offered substantial livelihood, not just to players but even support staff, making India the El Dorado for cricket. There was a clamour from players across the spectrum to be part of the IPL.

Ayaz MemonUpdated: Thursday, December 19, 2019, 10:18 PM IST
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IPL Trophy | Pic: Twitter

The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League comes up in the next few months, and the popularity and scale of the tournament keeps growing. Fan following for the league has increased every season, and in turn this has raised its financial value in terms of sponsorships, broadcast rights et al.

The manic following that it commands is the subject of debate among administrators across other sports disciplines, a part also in academia as a sterling case study. This reflects the pristine position the IPL enjoys today, and not just in cricket, but the world of sport. 

However, whether it is the 5th or 6th most valued sports property in the world became of academic importance when you consider how the IPL has transformed cricket globally, and also impacted Indian life. In both cases, the change has been substantial.

I’ll come to those after highlighting the allure of the league with a small but vital example. For instance, even the ‘mini auction’ for players that took place on Thursday grabbed headlines on the sports pages of every newspaper – indeed, was avidly followed all over the cricket world.

I write this before Thursday’s player auction so am oblivious to which player has hit a bonanza, who has been dumped, which youngster has become a star overnight and so on. But I am taken back almost 12 years when the first-ever auction took place, a watershed moment in cricket. 

While players acquiring price tags was not unusual in sport (baseball, basketball, football already had leagues operating in different parts of the world), this was novel for cricket, which was still steeped in tradition.

Some players, including those being auctioned, spoke of “feeling like cattle” being sold in the market. Of course, after the price tags became known, all the complaints died down. The sentiment that your skills were on hire to the highest bidder was not easy to digest. But why complain when this means consolidating the bank balance handsomely!

The strategy of franchises has also evolved fascinatingly. In the first year, apart from the ‘iconic’ players, the demand from all was for marquee names. The T20 format itself was untested, and what trajectory the IPL would take was completely unknown.

Big stars, apart from the talent they possessed, also allowed the possibility of getting monetisation through sponsorship deals and such. Till massive revenues started ticking in for franchises from the 11th season onward as a share of broadcast rights and other streams, keeping the enterprise financial afloat was a major consideration. 

But after the first couple of seasons, the tactics and thinking for player auctions saw a marked change. The effort nowadays is more to find the right balance and composition of the squad rather than just chase big-ticket names.

The instant success of the IPL set in motion significant changes in the sport. The league offered substantial livelihood, not just to players but even support staff, making India the El Dorado for cricket. There was a clamour from players across the spectrum to be part of the IPL.

This had some deleterious effect, too, on how the game was then structured in the sense that quite a few players, especially from the Caribbean, were keener to play the IPL rather than represent their Board.

There were concerns and misgivings in some Boards, but these dissipated over a period of time seeing the sustained growth of the IPL, as well as the intent of players from all countries to be part of the league.

In fact, such was the impact that IPL clones began to mushroom all over the world, not all of which have been able to survive. Of these, the Big Bash in Australia has dug deep roots and is immensely successful and The 100, planned by the England Cricket Board, holds out great promise. 

No league, however, has the financial heft to compete with the IPL, which benefits from not just the huge spectatorship available in India, but also the Indian economy, which till the last couple of years, was more robust than any other in the world.

In the Indian context, the IPL has had twin impact. At the macro level, it is a metaphor of the country’s shift towards copious consumerism. But it also came loaded with risk of wheeling and dealing and corruption if the checks and balances were inadequate, as emerged in the spot-fixing case which went up to the Supreme Court. Hopefully that is in the past. 

At the cricketing level, the IPL has afforded aspiration and opportunity for players from the remotest parts of the country to secure their future. Moreover, young players have gained tremendously from rubbing shoulders with the best players in the world, as well as the highly competitive ethos of the IPL.

All this has helped India become the most powerful in nation cricket – and not just in the financial sense, but also on the field of play.

The writer is a senior journalist who has been writing on the sport for over 40 years.

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