essentially- i am not sure either, but I had the impression WSG has the ights for 10 years and after 5 can theoretically sell it to someone other than Sony if they so choose.

re: the new deals. I only meant that in the time it takes for the IPL to become the global behmoth we are saying it could, the fresh deals being signed for cricket rights world over will stand to be revaluated, and only then possibly devauled.

Competitiveness is more vital to a sports league than any other product market and the old cliche about a league being as good as its worst team rings true. I think this is particularly relevant to cricket where there is significant talent disparity across countries. If they’d had no cap, I can see a Reliance outbidding everyone and stacking its team with Australians/Indian stars. They’d start off being favourites both in the cricket and brand building aspects and the eighth team will be left with scraps from New Zealand and Pakistan. While a team short on talent but greater than the sum of its parts is almost always competitive, they rarely win the big prizes; New Zealand themselves prove this. If they are planning to expand to 12 teams as I read somewhere, this problem could become more acute. The short format could negate these worries however. Oh well, more grist to chew over for us I guess.

Rakesh: I understand where you’re coming from. But I don’t agree. While people watch Tests in bits and pieces, and follow them online, their ratings aren’t high enough, and online doesn’t count for enough. Sustaining interest over five days is rare. It’s why one-dayers are Twenty20 are so popular. Time has everything to do with it.

Srivaths: The soft cap idea is intriguing. Realistically they could have run with it, rather than a firm cap. But I think having no cap at all could be a good idea too. Let’s take the current scenario: Given that there are only eight teams right now, and enough good cricketers to fill up a reasonable number of those teams, there will anyway be competition, cap or no cap.

However, it’s in the long run scenario that I’m not sure what works well. If it’s going to be called a free market enterprise, then removing the cap is necessary. I wasn’t thinking of football when advocating the removal of caps as much as of baseball, where you have a very expensive team like the Yankees, and a very effective team like Oakland’s. It’s like India and New Zealand, I guess (my thinking is simplistic here) – one an underperforming but talented team, the other a team whose total is greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps no cap will work, although the idea of soft caps is seriously tempting. I don’t know.

Shakester: Your tiny comment got me seriously thinking (perhaps I just need an excuse to write. ). I think Sony’s board allows them to take part in deals two years at a time. But has WSG paid upfront? I was under the impression that while they bid for ten years, they had a walk out option after five. But it’s likely that I’m entirely wrong.

When you say new deals will be being made, what do you mean? I was unclear about what you meant.

I agree about the ICC and/or situation. As of now, it feels like, for all the talk of cooperation, a collision is inevitable. The ICC’s statement day before about the IPL not being given a slot of its own on the calendar is at odds with what I’ve been hearing about Modi’s interactions with ICC officials. And now Cricket Australia has told Roy that if he doesn’t tour Pakistan, the IPL is a no-go. What does that do to Hyderabad, who bid that much only because they assumed he would play for three years? What does that do to the bidding process? I don’t know whether it’ll be possible to sustain this marking of dates by IPL on the ICC’s calendar. Playing on someone else’s time? I don’t know. Already looks like a conflict to me.

Yeah, the Indo-Pak series had airtime sold for about 2.25-2.5 lakhs for ten seconds on both DD and Neo, while the 2004 series on Ten and DD went for about 4.5 lakhs per ten seconds. Perhaps rates for T20 will also fall, given the heightened interest right now. But then again, there’s the matter of underdeclaration of subscribers by cable operators. Two months ago Mint ran a study by the center for media studies that showed operaters failing to report up to 66% of subscribers in some areas. I guess once you have accountability the existing level of rates will seem dirt cheap.

Also, when this will take off really really bg is when the ICC comes into it, or the IPL shows a finger to the ICC and breaks off . Either way, for most cricketeres to get involved, and the market to go beyond that induced by these 8 teams, it will have to become bigger. could happen, or not. who knows.

As an aside. Ind-Pak ODI matches, the prime advertising slots, saw a huge drop over the series. They play far too often now, and the soaring rates of the ‘friendship’ series haven’t really sustained.