Forward planning

BIZSPORT

This week, the England and Wales Cricket Board inked a deal worth £220 million for the four-year period starting 2006. The deal is contentious in that it has been signed with Sky TV "" and to think people were talking about cricket dying in England from lack of financial support!

But the purpose of bringing this deal up is to highlight how far ahead other cricket boards plan on important deals like TV rights. Two years still to go, and the new deal is already in place.

With as many as eight major tours in this period, Sky TV can plan well and reap huge benefits from the deal, while the ECB can sit back and relax with a fat bank balance, even though the new deal does not come into force till 2006.

The latest deal has raised quite a hue and cry among cricket fans in England, because it means the coverage of England's home Test matches will not be on terrestrial television for the first time in more than 50 years.

Channel Four, which has been providing terrific coverage, will be out in the cold after next year's Ashes series. But as far as the ECB is concerned, the whopping deal takes care of all kinds of cricket starting from grassroots to Test and international cricket.

Look at India in comparison. The cricket audiences and sponsorships elsewhere are only a fraction of what they are in India, yet others come up with better deals, or least well in advance.

The Indian Board asked for new bids less than two months before the old contract was to run out. The new contract was to start from the home series against Australia in October.

The highest bid was $308 million (approx Rs 1,400 crore, and almost 30-40 per cent more than what the Board had expected) but suddenly there was confusion and the matter is now in court. In between, piecemeal deals were made with Prasar Bharati and TEN Sports.

Indian cricket is probably the most valuable property for any channel in India. A decade ago, the TV rights went for less than 2 per cent of what they do now. The last deal was less than a fourth of the current offer, yet the Board messed up. The average cricket fan does not know who the president of the Board is. Still the matter of the Board elections is also in court.

Indian cricket has many ills. It is only the chosen few at the top who get the cream. Domestic cricket, facilities at stadia et al are horrendous. Top stars don't play domestic cricket and there are no sponsors for it.

In short, even with millions of dollars floating around and sponsors clamouring for a place on the crowded bus, Indian cricket is still a mess.

Like any business, a sports federation as big and profitable as the Indian Cricket Board ought to be run professionally. There ought to highly paid professional executives and financial officers and not honorary officials who sit on millions of dollars.

Get the best MBAs and then, like in the rest of the world, where sport is a major business run by professionals, India too can profit from the flourishing sports industry. Here, sport is a fiefdom for politicians and businessmen, whose sole aim is power.