The Business Of Cricket

By Aditya Rao

For a sport that is played by just 12 countries on a regular basis, the amount of money it generates is simply phenomenal. Cricket is no longer about being that elitist sport played by the members of the East India company.

It’s about cash, plain and simple and when it comes to that India runs the show.

The current experiment in this cash creation exercise is the brain child of the BCCI and marketed by its chairman, a man described by many as some sort of a marketing genius. It’s called the IPL (Indian Premier League) and it’s about 20/20 while the man in question is named Lalit Modi.

While you can read about the nuances of the game by blogger Amit Varma, consider the business side of it. The BCCI has overtaken England’s Cricket board in terms of the amount of money that each generates thus making it the #1 Cricketing body in India and the World.

With the IPL, it is slated to make even more. Not only did they sell the rights to the 44 day tournament to Sony Entertainment Television for a whopping $1.03 billion but also everything else that they possibly could to a number of franchises. That means licensing and merchandising rights, copyrights and trade licenses.

That’s just the start of it. The IPL consists of 8 teams filled with the best possible players in World Cricket. They auctioned the best players to those teams which were purchased by some of the World’s richest including Mukesh Ambani of Reliance and Vijay Mallya of UB.

By selling the teams and players, they managed to raise another $723 million.

The IPL has been created to provide obvious entertainment to cricket lovers but more so to take the sport and make it a worldwide phenomenon. The IPL will be seen by more countries than any other similar tournament before and it will definitely raise more than any tournament like it. Simply because the hype is paying off. A mere ten second commercial on Sony sells for at least $6000.The investment for Sony seems to have paid off, for this season alone they’re expected to make about fifty million dollars. One down, nine to go.

The sport has gotten so big that no longer is it about the cricket lover and his interests. The players themselves get paid for everything and I mean absolutely everything. Hitting a six or a four .Being the man of the match or simply appearing for one garners an appearance fee.

Playing gear has been designed by some of India’s best and most expensive designers while Reebok,Adidas And Nike officials were waiting in line just to have their logos displayed on the shirts of the players.

Everyone who is anyone has turned up to watch their local team win with more interest than for the national team. The past few days have had filmstars, politicians, other sportsmen and women in addition to the owners themselves showing up in the stadium. While the entire event across eight cities has been sold out, the BCCI is still finding more ways of making this bigger.

Cricket or not, the hype has definitely worked.

Suggested Reading

• The India Street: Virtual Cricket Stock Exchange of India
• The India Street: In Pictures: Indian cricket stadiums