The league’s ripples
February 15, 2008 by Rahul
The development of the IPL is interesting. It’s inevitable that it will eat into cricket elsewhere, as in the case of coaches. Greg Shipperd, of Australia, is a contender. Will cricket learn to live with two leagues? I don’t think the national game will continue to have the importance it has now. As the competition develops and expands, it’s very likely that players won’t wait till their national careers are at an end to sign up. There’s too much jhanjhat in the national game. In that sense, Lalit Modi’s designation as commissioner of the league is a pretty good call. He’s been doing the rounds to strengthen IPL’s importance on the cricketing calendar from next year on. I don’t know whether anyone seriously believes that the IPL can coexist with the ICC.
Here’s why: it has everything to do with TV. If the league was to expand, and international cricket was relegated to fewer months, as seems to be the case from next year, broadcasters would have serious problems. The guys at Ten Sports, for one, were surprised to hear that this year’s series against Sri Lanka might be the last time West Indies will play a series at home during its best season of March-June or thereabouts. Assuming that it rains less during these months, which broadcaster would be happy? If the cricket calendar has to be moved around, which I’m dead certain will happen, it will mean that the deals broadcasters brokered with various boards, including the ICC, will have fundamentally changed. If the league takes off, the other rights automatically become less important. Are ESPN-Star’s ICC rights really worth a billion bucks now? I’ll bet they’re wishing they had bid a little less for one event, and a little more for the other.
The future you talk of is still a while away. Its not unthinkable, and probably likely; but it will be a few years before a league of this sort can start killing the long standing draw of nation v nation encounters. By then- assuming such a sea-change does take place- the market forces would have evened out the relevant acquisition costs.
[...] 20, 2008 Shakester wrote in response to an earlier post ‘The League’s Ripples‘: The future you talk of is still a while away. Its not unthinkable, and probably likely; but [...]
[...] the three of you that got this far, Rahul Bhatia writes about the some of the consequences of this here and here. Rahul is right on top of the IPL goings-on with his incisive commentary - do visit the [...]
[...] For the three of you that got this far, Rahul Bhatia has related thoughts here and here. Rahul is right on top of the IPL goings-on with his incisive commentary - do visit the [...]