Devangshu Datta: The rules of an unfair game

VIEWPOINT

In my neighbourhood in Calcutta, we used to play a version of soccer. It involved dribbling a ball inside an alleyway, about 60 metres long by 10 metres wide, with houses cheek-by-jowl on both sides of the street.

Slippers marked off the "uprights" of the goals; the height of a "legal" goal was always disputed. Teams were chosen through a rough division of available teenagers. None of us knew the rules of five-a-side, which is designed for such enclosed spaces. There was no referee since everybody wanted to play. We made up the rules as we went along. Disputes occurred roughly every three minutes.

A chap named Priya Sarkar was the arbitrator""his decision was binding. Priya-da always captained one team and played as centre-forward. So you could perceive a certain conflict of interest. He was often blatantly unfair and favoured his own team. He wasn't even much of a centre-forward. But he did own the ball.

I was reminded of this chapter from my long-lost youth, when the Nimbus-Prashar Bharati row blew up. There was an odd concatenation of coincidences. In each instance, the arena is sport. A "Sarkar" exercised the right of ownership to change the rules as he/it pleased. In both cases, there's a clear conflict of interest.

The final seal of coincidence of course is the fact that a "Priya-da" is involved in each case. That's actually less surprising than it may appear. If you stand around in a Bengali neighbourhood and yell "Priya-da!!", several gents bearing that name will appear. Unlike Priya Sarkar of Bhowanipur, who changed the rules of soccer circa 1978, Priya Das Munshi (PDM) is merely the pointman in this particular instance of the Sarkar changing the rules. He is scarcely the only villain.

Over the years, PDM has brought much joy to those who have followed his political career. In 1978, when "my" Priya-da was improvising the rules of street soccer, PDM was assuring everyone that "The Sun will rise in the West before PDM will rejoin the Congress". (Like most Indian politicians and quite a few business magnates, he prefers to refer to himself in the third person.) Then again, he was startlingly and risibly frank before he got married, declaring in a media interview that he was not only a lifelong bachelor, he was a 50-year-old virgin.

Day before yesterday, PDM changed the rules of sports broadcasting with his announcement of a new Ordinance that will allow Doordarshan to grab feeds of any sports event that it deems to be of "national importance". On the ground, this currently translates into broadcast of ODIs and home test matches. A few years hence, it could mean every tennis match Sania Mirza plays. Or whatever.

The problem is, cricket organisers like those of most other sports try to leverage TV coverage into revenue. The BCCI has been pretty successful at this, not surprising given the acumen of its administrators and the sheer popularity of the game.

Nimbus paid $612 million for the exclusive right to broadcast every international match hosted in India until 2010. Other broadcasters such as ESPN, Star, Ten Sports, etc. have exclusive rights for various other cricket events. The key word here is "exclusive".

The dictionary definition excludes anybody else broadcasting the same event without the rights owner's permission. When the cricket rights were auctioned, sports broadcasters made bids under the assumption that the dictionary definition was the one that counted. And then, the Sarkar decided to change the rules.

Now, the draft Ordinance presumably doesn't include DD returning a large proportion (or all) of Nimbus' bid amount in lieu of the loss of exclusivity. And it sets a crazy precedent when it comes to digital content. Tomorrow DD could demand the right to broadcast a movie, an ad, anything, for free because it's of "national importance". Bully for DD""it gets to cherry pick the best content without having to pay for it. After all, it owns the ball!