About eleven years ago, an agitated Subrata Roy called up BCCI strong man Jagmohan Dalmia after he heard that a multinational company had won the rights for sponsoring the Indian cricket team.
Roy invoked the patriotic card and told Dalmia that it would be unfortunate if India’s boys who were playing in international venues were to don a MNC logo instead of that of an Indian company, “I had earlier suggested that only Indian companies should be allowed to bid for the sponsorship but BCCI did not agree. Then when I heard that an MNC has won, I decided to mark my protest” says Roy.
Dalmia saw the point but Sahara paid a staggering 10 per cent more than the MNC to walk away with the coveted sponsorship. Since then, for the past eleven years, the Indian cricket team has sported just one brand—irrespective of whether they won or lost—namely, the Sahara logo.
However, last week in an abrupt move which sent shock waves throughout the cricketing world, Roy and Sahara decided to pull the plug from BCCI—announcing that Sahara is not only withdrawing from the sponsorship of the Indian cricket team(the contract ends only in December 2013) but also getting out of Pune Warriors—one of the IPL franchises which they bought for a record Rs 1,700 crore in 2010 after a tough battle. More surprisingly, the bombshell was thrown just a few hours before the auction of new players was about to begin in Bangalore for the IPL-5 series.
Sahara did not participate in the auction. And Roy openly lambasted the BCCI saying that people in position in that organisation have become “cowards” who are obsessed only in protecting their position—perhaps the most virulent attack by someone who is considered to be a key ally of the BCCI and who has forked out over Rs 1,000 crore on sponsorships in the last decade. Roy made no bones as to why he was quitting: “Whenever we have approached them with issues they have refused to help, and we have now reached a stage where we are perturbed by their behaviour.”
Roy said it was not an abrupt decision but a culmination of complaints against the BCCI which have been piling up for many years that led to the recent stand-off. For instance, Roy says that the cricket body did not go in for an open auction last year and allowed older franchises to retain marquee players. “As a result, new teams like us did not get a level playing field,” says Roy. Two, Roy says at least one team was allowed five foreign players by BCCI while the same request from Sahara was not heeded to. Three, in 2008, Sahara was not allowed to bid for the IPL league on some minor technical grounds, something that Roy has not forgotten. Rajeev Shukla, Commissioner, IPL and a senior member of BCCI said on the issues raised by Roy: “We will look into the matter and try to find a solution amicably”.
And the immediate provocation: Sahara requested BCCI to add $1.8 million to its purses this year for the auction as Yuvraj would not be playing so that they could get some good players. This again was rejected by BCCI. Yet, Roy hoped for an amicable settlement instead of a legal battle.
Roy, of course has gone where only a few have dared to go. BCCI, is one of the richest sports bodies in the country with immense clout, and few people have been able to take it on. Even Lalit Modi, the man who designed and implemented the IPL, found out the hard way and now faces various criminal cases. The promoters of the Kochi Tuskers were also shown the door and de-franchised when they failed to pay up on time.
But Sahara boss Roy is no pushover—he has immense clout across the political spectrum and counts former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as well as Mulayam Singh Yadav as his close friends. Bollywood badshahs, be it Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan, have been his personal guests in his swanky Sahara Sahar in Lucknow. He has successfully weathered many investigations by the Government on the source of his wealth as well as tax cases and runs a large empire which includes broadcasting, newspapers, real estate, para banking, a huge resort in Aamby valley and IT products, amongst other things.
Many of the Indian cricket stars have been closely associated with his company as directors or as his personal friends. And he is known to be a great host, throwing parties especially for the Indian cricket team on various victories. So, for instance, when Sourav Ganguly was dropped from the Indian cricket team, it was Subrata Roy who asked him whether he would call up his friends in BCCI and get things settled for him. And Yuvraj Singh, Roy says, is like his “third son”, whom the group is paying $1.8 million for this year’s IPL tournament despite his absence.
Roy is also an astute negotiator. While on one level he has lambasted the BCCI, he has at the same time also shown accommodation from the very beginning of the announcement. He told Business Standard that he is worried about the players, wants them to play this season, is ready to be “flexible” and has pleaded with BCCI on their behalf. On the other hand, he has made it clear that there would be many takers for the Indian cricket team sponsorship and he is not interested in paying up. BCCI president N Srinivasan and Roy are to meet over the weekend to work out their differences.
Those who know Roy say that he is a consummate businessmen and his decision to quit has been taken with a lot of thought and has nothing to do with emotion at all. “He has milked the Sahara brand well especially after the World Cup victory. With the Indian team’s fortune going down under, the brand value has taken a steep fall. It does not make sense to pay Rs 3 crore a match when you can get it for less than half the price. So he wants to quit before 2013”, says a top executive of a sport management company.
Similarly, Sahara after forking out a whopping Rs 170 crore every year for the Pune Warriors, which is virtually one-fourth of the total money paid by all the franchises put together, would find it very difficult to make money for a long time, say analysts. Advertisers and sponsors would be hard to come by to support the team—its only marquee player Yuvraj Singh cannot play this season, the team’s record last year as a team was dismal and it was near the bottom of the table in standings.
Still, while Roy is a shrewd businessmen, he also has an emotional bond with sports, especially cricket—you will see him or his sons at every venue encouraging the Pune Warriors. A close associate of Roy says that he has been inundated with calls and e-mails from cricketers and fans as well as his friends, asking him to not to pull out, at least from Pune, if nothing else. “He is definitely under pressure with hundreds and thousands of mails and phone calls coming not to pull out. It is not easy” says the associate.
He also wants a clear message to go to BCCI—Sahara is not quitting its support for sports in general. Just a day before the meeting with the BCCI chief Roy announced that Sahara would intensify its relation with Indian hockey which is the country’s national sport by increasing sponsorship by a whopping 170 per cent. Earlier, he had also announced sports projects worth over Rs 1,000 crore which includes sports academies amongst others.
Right now though, the question is whether Roy can win this battle with BCCI and get what he really wants.
