As the Indian Premier League (IPL) got off to a spectacular start yesterday afternoon, India had plenty to celebrate, other than the fact that the second edition of this lucrative domestic tournament is finally underway against formidable odds, and appears to have defied the Cassandras. To relocate a massive domestic tournament involving players from around the globe to another continent in short order represents an innovative leap of faith, not to mention enormous logistical challenges. Even critics of IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi will admit that the relocation of IPL-2 does credit to India’s innate ability to make the best of a disadvantageous situation. To extend the analogy to business — and, at the end of the day, cricket is just that — it is the same talent for profit-maximising, innovative thinking that has ensured the survival of this controversial money-spinner for the world’s cricketing fraternity and the powerful Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), organiser of the IPL tournament.
That Modi had South Africa and England vying for the privilege of hosting an Indian tournament is also noteworthy. IPL-2 in South Africa also underlines the message implicit in IPL-1: Wherever the cricketing talent may lie, the balance of money power in the sport has shifted to the Indian continent. Spiffy cricketing establishments in the UK, which commandeered leadership by virtue of colonial history, and Australia may abhor this trend but its star cricketers, past and present, don’t seem to harbour reservations about earning their money from India. Neither, in fact, did Pakistani players until their domestic board forbade them to participate. It is also notable that the team owners represent a combination of India’s “soft power” — Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty — and globalising domestic business interests. For instance, Mumbai Indians is owned by Mukesh Ambani, who runs India’s largest private corporation and was instrumental in setting up the world’s largest greenfield oil refineries. Royal Challenger is owned by Vijay Mallya, whose liquor-to-airline conglomerate makes him a significant player in the Indian business scene. The Delhi Daredevils is owned by the GMR group, which is not only associated with the modernisation of the Hyderabad and Delhi airports but has also won similar contracts for Turkey and Prague.
Much criticism was heaped on Modi and the IPL organisers for persisting with the decision to hold the tournament even as it became increasingly clear that the states in which the matches would be played would be unable to provide security for players and spectators. More censorious rumbles were heard when the decision to hold the tournament overseas was announced. Cricket was being held hostage to profit, it was said. Those who condemned probably forget that this was the raison d etre of the IPL anyway and in that sense it is no different from any global sports tournament, from the Formula 1 Grand Prix races to the English Premier League, on which IPL is loosely based. Indeed, the organisation of cricket as a sport on national rather than commercial lines has kept it an oddity in the global sports industry.
In any case, performance speaks louder than rhetoric. In IPL’s case, last year’s resounding success — it recorded peak viewership ratings of 10 per cent against 5 per cent for the most successful general entertainment show — has enabled Sony to sell its 10-second advertising spots at 35 per cent premium, which is astounding given the degree to which the advertising market has collapsed. Team owners, too, stand to profit after Modi wrested significantly higher payments for broadcasting rights from Sony, 80 per cent of which goes to the franchisees. IPL-2 in South Africa, thus, appears to be a business success even before the first ball is bowled. In these times, that is no small achievement.
