Future of world cricket after IPL.

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The silly season of cricket punditry is upon us, and I blame Lalit Modi. Had the man not unleashed the Indian Premier League, newspapers and websites would not be full of otherwise sensible commentators telling us that the world is coming to an end because there is so much money in the game and the centre of cricket is shifting to savage, uncultured Asia.. More... Why the IPL is good for cricket Talk about silly money all you like, but the bottomline is the IPL will bring competition and the rules of the market into Indian cricket - and that can't be bad Amit Varma March 13, 2008 The likes of Ishant Sharma and Andrew Symonds have been sold for the prices they have because the franchises think they can get a return on their investment © Getty Images The silly season of cricket punditry is upon us, and I blame Lalit Modi. Had the man not unleashed the Indian Premier League, newspapers and websites would not be full of otherwise sensible commentators telling us that the world is coming to an end because there is so much money in the game and the centre of cricket is shifting to savage, uncultured Asia. They rail against the profit motive and splutter indignantly and eloquently against the huge amounts given to some of these players. Some, like Tim de Lisle in a column a few days ago on Cricinfo, complain that such "silly money" is "disgusting" in a country that "encompasses a great deal of poverty". I disagree. Firstly, I think that the IPL is a huge step forward for cricket. Second, contrary to what de Lisle writes, it is good for India as well. Let's start with cricket. The problem with cricket in most cricket-playing countries, certainly in India, is that the cricket market is what economists call a monopsony. A monopsony is a market in which there is only one buyer for a particular class of goods and services. Until now, a young Indian cricketer who wanted to play at the highest level could only sell his services to the BCCI. If it treated him badly and did not give him his due rewards, he had no other options open to him. This was exacerbated by the lack of accountability in the BCCI. The men who run it get their posts by pandering to the state associations that vote for them, by handing those associations ODIs that bring them revenue, by distributing posts within the board, and so on. How the cricket team performs on the field has no bearing on the tenures of these men; those are determined by politics. This has two implications. One, the incentives for picking the best team possible aren't too strong, as there is no penalty for poor performance. (In fact, regional politics within the selection committee has sometimes ensured that the best team hasn't been picked.) Two, a player who suffers because of this has no other options open to him. While the BCCI will continue to run along the same lines, the IPL turns this on its head. There is competition between the franchises, who have spent tons of money to enter the IPL and need to make profits to justify their involvement. This acts as a powerful incentive for them to hire the best cricketers they can find, and to develop new talent. Teams that are selected based on politics or bias will play worse than the teams that don't, and their bottomline will suffer. Equally, all the incentives are tailored towards finding and developing new talent. If the IPL is a success, don't be surprised if the franchises open their own academies and nurture youth teams - it is in their financial interest to do so. Precisely such feeder systems have developed in the Premier League in England, and all for the sake of the much-maligned profit motive. Think of what this will mean for the players. A talented young cricketer frustrated by the BCCI will no longer have to suck up to officials and hope that they notice his talent in the handful of games he gets in local cricket. Instead, he will find eight potential buyers for his services. If he has either talent or potential, they will compete to employ him. The BCCI has helped this process along with the mandate that each team employ at least four cricketers under 22. As a result, the players of the current Under-19 side have suddenly become much sought after. This will happen to every future Under-19 side. Young talent will be less likely, in future, to fall by the wayside and be ignored. Callow fast bowlers will be less likely to be injured for long periods of time, for their employers will hire the best trainers to look after their assets - cold as it sounds to call them that. A common complaint about the IPL centres around the money paid to individual cricketers. Does Rohit Sharma really deserve more than Ricky Ponting? Are the men paying Ishant Sharma more than Dale Steyn and Glenn McGrath making a silly mistake? Well, firstly, these investments are made not just on the basis of cricketing ability but also on factors like brand appeal and likely availability. Secondly, more importantly, if they are foolish decisions, then the most potent commentary on them will come not from cricket writers but from the balance sheet. Those who make foolish investments will suffer; those who are smart will prosper. Eventually, as this market matures, we will come closer to finding out the true value of players. There is competition between the franchises, who have spent tons of money to enter the IPL and need to make profits to justify their involvement. This acts as a powerful incentive for them to hire the best cricketers they can find, and to develop new talent. Teams that are selected based on politics or bias will play worse than the teams that don't, and their bottomline will suffer Some commentators take issue with so much money being spent on a sport in a poor country. "[M]ost of these millions will be leaving India," de Lisle wrote in his piece, "filling the coffers of Australian stars who are already very highly paid. Money shouldn't travel in a direction like that." If that logic was correct, we might as well stop poor countries from importing anything. Every trade happens because it leaves both parties better off, and the IPL's foreign players are being paid so much because they bring that much value to the table. That value, the return on those investments, will happen within India. Andrew Symonds may be delighted that his services are being sold for $1.35m, but the franchise that bought him also thinks that it can get at least that much value out of him, through the various revenue streams open to them. Every flourishing business creates employment opportunities and enriches the local economy. The IPL will offer more opportunity to cricketers coming up the ladder, and more choices to cricket viewers. The income disparities that pundits complain about are best tackled using exactly such a combination of opportunity and choice - and not by keeping everyone poor. Also, we don't live in a zero-sum world - the profits from the IPL will not come at the expense of better causes. In fact, they will be invested back in the local economy, and in the long run, along with the profits of many other businesses started for the supposedly base purpose of making money, will end up creating jobs for people who might otherwise have to depend on charity. That is how economies grow and people progress. Having said that, the IPL could fail, for not every good idea is rewarded with smart execution. Maybe the franchises got carried away and bid too high (game theorists call it "the winner's curse"). Maybe the games will not get high enough TRPs, as a cricket-loving public deluged with an overdose of cricket finds other ways to entertain itself. If it does flounder, it will be a pity, for its failure will be remembered and used to prevent other such experiments. On the other hand, if the IPL succeeds, cricket historians may one day write about 2008 as the year that cricket discovered its future. Amit Varma, a former managing editor of Cricinfo in India, writes on economics and politics. He won the 2007 Bastiat Prize for Journalism, and writes the popular blog India Uncut

[Rohan495]

I think IPL is a great to way to promote cricket. When you compare cricket to basketball and soccer which are the more common sports in the world, its all about the leagues. With a league like IPL it will propel cricket all across the world. I dont know if you guys watch ESPN in america but i see cricket being talked about more and more. Bottom line is that cricket is the second most popular sport after Soccer and a league like IPL will certainly help young cricketers growing up have a purpose, since its so hard to make the national team. Atleast cricket can be called a profession knowing there is some financial reward. I hope the IPL succeeds because the 20 20 format is the right way to go as far as globalization of the sport is concerned. Long Live IPL

[Chandan]

Future of world cricket after IPL. Some of the English authors joined by a few Australian fellows in their respective newspapers have been predicting pretty depressing future for world cricket if the IPL succeeds. And it reached a really ridiculous height where Scott reported in The Guardian that after the radical re-evaluation of players in IPL, the FICA has warned ICC that players are on the brink of a revolt and breakaway from the governing body. It was really ridiculous to suggest that, but I'm still unsure if IPL will indeed bring a revolution in cricket as anticipated. Sambit Bal has given a comprehensive account about what worst can happen to cricket, and what best can happen to it as well. Threat and opportunity The IPL, if it is a success, will change cricket irrevocably. Whether for better or worse remains to be seen April 17, 2008 Crazy numbers: the skewed valuations in the IPL may end up diminishing the value of Test cricket © AFP Cricket is about to plunge deep into the unknown with the Indian Premier League. On the face of it, it is merely a domestic tournament, but few developments have shaken the game up the way the IPL, variously described as audacious, crass, visionary and brazen, has. Few cricket tournaments have been as eagerly awaited; there is a mixture of fear, excitement, anxiety, and a sense of anticipation. It is such an outrageously grandiose design that only a man of Lalit Modi's ambition and audacity would have had the nerve to propose and execute it. Modi is a sharp and driven man and it would seem he will stop at nothing to make the IPL the showpiece event in the cricket calendar. In a sense it is ironical this ambition has cast a shadow on the IPL even before it has begun. It is astounding how much ill-will he has managed to attract for a tournament that could do with all the goodwill it could gather. Of course, there is no denying that the IPL has the potential to be a watershed event in cricket. Not since the Packer revolution, which fast-tracked cricket into the professional age, has an event challenged the status quo as much the IPL has, and that too to gain sanction, however grudging, from all those who matter in world cricket. If the IPL succeeds, its effects on cricket could be profound. Whether they will be for the better or the worse can only be left to speculation. The worst-case scenario first. Some of the potential dangers have been pointed out already. As Osman Samiuddin has articulated perceptively, one of the biggest dangers is the concentration of power and the consequent misuse of it. India's has been the most powerful chair at the ICC for a while now, and the fear is that the riches from the IPL could turn the BCCI into a law entirely unto itself. Equally insidious in the long run could be the impact on the other forms of the game. Ultimately, money will rule and the tournament will have to become a fixture in the already packed international calendar. Modi has already spoken of a second IPL season later this year. Something has to give. But the worst thing to happen to cricket is that the IPL, and its Twenty20 variants, could end up becoming the real thing. India have just finished a Test series with South Africa, their rivals for the No. 2 spot on the ICC Test table. For the most part it felt like a sideshow everybody wanted to get out of the way before the main event began. There were whispers about players cotton-woolling themselves for IPL, and a few South African cricketers have been released from their domestic responsibilities to be able to play for their IPL employers. The workload-to-remuneration ratio is so attractive in the IPL that it would be unnatural if the thought of chucking away a humdrum county contract, say, didn't appear tempting to most. Test cricket is a hard job. Apart from considerable skill, it requires application and perseverance. Every player worth his salt recognises the primacy of the form. Despite all his success in one-day cricket, Yuvraj Singh is desperately aware that his place in the pantheon will be not secure if he does not prove his worth in Tests. Will the Twenty20 pack care as much when both fame and fortune are so readily available? It is now eminently possible for a cricketer to only play in the IPL and end up earning more than one who plays only Test cricket. If administrators are not careful many promising players could give up the struggle to win a Test cap for the easy riches of the IPL. That's a dreadful thought. Worst of all, riding on the IPL's success, Indian cricket could conceivably become a world by itself, and like in American baseball, run its own World Series. It has 80% of the world's cricket audience, and as has already been demonstrated, it will have no problems in attracting the world's top talents. If enough money can be churned out of the IPL, why bother with the rest of the game? Twenty20 could become the premier version of the game. And that would be the death of cricket as we know it. All shook up : What good can it do to cricket? The advent of the IPL will possibly lead to the professionalisation of Indian cricket, which is not such a bad thing © AFP However, little will be gained by moaning. The IPL cannot be wished away. Indeed, nudged in the right direction, it has the potential of doing much good. Let's begin with the Future Tours Program. One fear is that with pressure mounting for the creation of a window for the IPL in the international calendar, teams that are lesser draws - read Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, New Zealand and West Indies, in that order - may end up getting squeezed out. That's not as horrible as it sounds. The FTP was a noble concept. Cricket needed, and needs, its central authority to prevent the calendar from getting lopsided. But that said, the assumptions underlying a system of reciprocal tours have been shown up to be flawed. It's another matter that India have disregarded the FTP by refusing to ever invite Bangladesh home, but the disparity between the teams at the bottom of the table and the established ones is so huge that Test cricket between them is an insult to the concept. South Africa's recently concluded tour of Bangladesh is an emphatic case in point: they broke a record that had stood for more than half a century, but the meaninglessness of it dulled the senses. Test cricket is at its best when the competition is even; it is even compelling when a weaker side can compete beyond expectations. But it is a waste of time when the teams are completely mismatched. There is a sense of dread developing already about Australia's tour of West Indies next month. It might seem unfair, but it might not be such a bad idea if the top tier in Test cricket consisted of the six leading teams, and more five-Test series between them. It's an utopian idea, and the IPL's bosses are certainly not thinking about it, but if it is an unforeseen by-product of the IPL, cricket should welcome it. Either way, the FTP needs a shake-up and the IPL has made it inevitable. The creation of a new layer in cricket is exciting. And in a sense, it could only have been achieved through Twenty20, which offers cricket the best chance of succeeding as pure entertainment. If it does succeed, the IPL is likely to expand the reach of cricket. Test cricket may or may not benefit from the trickle-down effect, but that's not the point. Also, the IPL could be a catalyst for reform in the sterile domestic competitions in other countries. The shake-up could start with England, who will have to create space for their own proposed Twenty20 Premier League. In its present form, the county season runs on and on with each of the 18 teams playing 16 matches each. That makes it a mind-numbing 144 first-class games. In addition to the 50-overs championship and the Twenty-20 competition, there is also the Pro40, which makes it one tournament too many. A tighter, more competitive structure is more than welcome. In an Indian context, the introduction of private enterprise via the IPL might finally unshackle cricket from the iron fists of the BCCI. It does sound like a paradox, because the BCCI's monopolistic tendencies are well established, but team owners are likely to increasingly gain control over the business of cricket and professionalism is bound to follow. Already there is a parallel structure with franchises taking over the selection process, and they will have a big role to play in creating a better environment for watching cricket in the stadiums. Despite being the single biggest factor in India's growing influence in world cricket, the Indian spectator has been the most neglected soul in the country's cricket. That he can now demand a better deal is a welcome change. In the end the spectator is the one who holds the key to the future of the IPL. All the planning, all the spending, all the forecasts have gambled heavily on the Indian cricket fan buying into the concept. Nationalism has been the core of cricket since its inception and the IPL seeks to challenge that with a combination of an exciting format, star power and razzmatazz. Will the fans be shaken and stirred without the bond and passion of national colours? The future of cricket is now in the hands of the fans. Which is not such a bad thing. ------------------------------------------------------ Oh well!! I'm really undecided! What do you all think? I know that Dhondy was painting a pretty gloomy picture of cricket if IPL/ICL succeed. I don't know if it was his genuine view or one influenced by the cribbing English media. But some have even come up with advantages it will have and how will it improve the Indian cricket in particular, if it is a success. What are your views?

[Gambit]

I want IPL and ICL to fizzle out. Nothing should replace international cricket. Nothing stirs up passion quite like the way international games do in Cricket. However, what Lurker is saying is true. Cricket, like any other major sport, is a business. It needs to be a profitable exercise. Apart from Australia, England and India, test match attendances are dwindling. The money just isn't pouring in. This IPL/ICL circus promises to be a mega money generator. Can you believe than Sony is offering a 30 second ad slot during IPL games for $16,500?!! That is crazy money. But I am hopeful. I hope that the common fans, people who buy tickets for these games, watch it on TV, give it a thumbs down after realising that these games didn't really excite them or stir their emotions quite like their beloved Indian Cricket Team did. International Cricket survived the Packer era, hope it survives this tidal wave.

[Yuvraj4Captaincy]

I want IPL and ICL to fizzle out. Nothing should replace international cricket. Nothing stirs up passion quite like the way international games do in Cricket. However, what Lurker is saying is true. Cricket, like any other major sport, is a business. It needs to be a profitable exercise. Apart from Australia, England and India, test match attendances are dwindling. The money just isn't pouring in. This IPL/ICL circus promises to be a mega money generator. Can you believe than Sony is offering a 30 second ad slot during IPL games for $16,500?!! That is crazy money. But I am hopeful. I hope that the common fans, people who buy tickets for these games, watch it on TV, give it a thumbs down after realising that these games didn't really excite them or stir their emotions quite like their beloved Indian Cricket Team did. International Cricket survived the Packer era, hope it survives this tidal wave.

IPL is the way to go...

[Gambit]

IPL is the way to go...

Yuvi would be praying it is. :D

[Predator_05]

Twenty20 cricket is here to stay, whether you like it or not. Let's face facts - the common man prefers the razmatazz, the glitz and glamour and the non-stop entertainment offered by this form of the game. Look at the crowds that turn up to watch T20 and then compare that level of viewership with the masses of empty seats you always see in Test and ODI cricket

[PaiN_KiLLeR]

T20 is entertainment. There's huge number of people out there looknig for some entertainment in the form of cricket. Genuine cricket fans like us on ICF are just a fraction of this number. The IPL is a monster and I believe it will kill the 50 over game. All 3 formats of the game can not co-exist.

[flamy]

IPL SOARED during the Kolkata innings and crashed and died a miserable death during the Bangalore innings. That's the story so far. But, do check out the attendance for the match.

[Predator_05]

But' date=' do check out the attendance for the match.[/quote'] Gaurav Taanguly said that his team's next match at Kolkata will produce a crowd of over100,000. That should make for one hell of an atmosphere

[Bumper]

The only good IPL can bring to cricket, is convince aspiring players from economically weaker countries (such as WI) to opt for a cricket career. Because of the lack of money, many WI youngsters with potential in cricket, opt for basketball. IPL can convert them to cricket. It can also help the situation in SA where quota systems affect budding cricketers. Besides, T20 type leagues can improve viewership in countries such as SA, NZ, Eng, where cricket has to compete with rughby & soccer. But the amount of money involved in IPL is insane. Thats gonna hurt most teams, than help!