Pursuits: Ultimately the money ends up damaging cricket

I don’t know how many of you remember Kerry Packer.

He was an Australian TV magnate who was well hated by the cricket establishment but who ended up transforming world cricket forever.

 

Packer took the line that cricket was on its deathbed because Test matches were boring. So, he created a rebel league which included many top cricketers and changed some of the old rules. Matches would last no longer than a day. They would take place at night under floodlights. And players would not necessarily have to wear the traditional white uniform that had marked cricket for centuries. And then, there was the marketing. The cricket establishment frowned on sponsorship and was loath to project players as stars. Packer thrived on sponsorship deals and his publicity machine went out of its way to market individual players. For instance, Imran Khan’s reputation as a sex symbol dates back to the Packer era, when he was projected as the young sex god of one-day cricket.

 

   Initially, the cricket establishment did everything it could to stop Packer. But eventually it came to the conclusion that the best way to beat him was to adopt his methods. So, it accepted the idea of one-day matches, threw open its doors to sponsorship arrangements and allowed players to emerge as stars. In no time at all, Packer’s idea had become part of the mainstream while Packer’s own rebel league shrivelled up and died.

 

   Something similar has happened with Indian cricket. Though the Indian cricketing tradition was not dying and Test matches were well attended, various Indian entrepreneurs still felt that they could take a leaf from Packer’s book. Lalit Modi, the son of K.K. Modi, a well-known Indian industrialist, toyed with the idea of a rebel league like Packer’s but finally gave up because the hold of India’s cricket board over its players was much too strong. Then, Subhash Chandra of Zee TV did go ahead and launch a rebel league of his own.

 

   The Indian cricket board recognized that the threat was real. Seeking to create a one-day league of its own, it turned to Lalit Modi. What if he took his ideas and brought them into the official fold? The Indian board would control the league of course, but Modi could manage it.

 

   That initiative led to the creation of the Indian Premier League or the IPL, as it came to be known. From the very first match, IPL was a super success. It attracted a younger audience to the matches and its television ratings were stupendous. Younger cricketers from all over India got a chance to play with some of the world’s finest batsmen and bowlers and that experience contributed immensely to an improvement in the general standard of Indian cricket.

 

"At present, the Indian cricket board makes more money than every single other Indian sports federation put together."

   Of course, there were criticisms. Modi involved the top guns of Indian industry and Bollywood in his venture. Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta were among the team owners. Such industrialists as Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya also owned their own teams. The glitter and the glamour made some people uncomfortable. So did some trashy innovations such as the use of foreign cheerleaders, imported to wave their pom poms on the sidelines of each game.

 

   But as time went on, it soon became clear that the IPL’s problems went beyond mere glitz. There was, first of all, a controversy over the ownership of the teams. Some people suggested that Modi himself was a secret shareholder in at least two teams. Modi responded by alleging that Congress minister, Shashi Tharoor, had a financial involvement in the Cochin team. The ensuing furore cost Tharoor his job and Modi faced criminal investigations by the tax authorities. Eventually, just when it seemed possible that he might be arrested, Modi left India.

 

   Since then, he has been spotted at a variety of glamorous locations – Venice, Montenegro, Ibiza, Havana and God alone knows where else – living the good life while simultaneously launching a tirade in mainstream media and on Twitter against the people who control the Indian cricket board.

 

   Meanwhile, the IPL’s fortunes have been mixed. At a commercial level, it continues to do well. The last season had some of its best-ever TV ratings. On the other hand, it finds itself embroiled in a new scandal every month. Are owners betting on their teams? Are matches fixed? Are players dishonest? Is the board siphoning out money? And so on.

 

   Over the last month, the IPL’s scandals have grown to the extent that it has taken centrestage in Indian politics. The foreign minister has been accused of acting stealthily to protect Modi from the tax enforcement authorities of her own government. A chief minister has been accused of dodgy financial dealings with Modi. A committee appointed by the Supreme Court has banned two teams for two years. Two team owners have been banned from any involvement in cricket during their lifetimes.

 

   How can it all have gone so wrong? Compared to the controversy that now engulfs the IPL, the Packer furore of the 1970s seems like small potatoes. And yet, in a sense, it is the Packer league that is at the root of many of cricket’s current evils. Till Packer came along and showed fuddy-duddy cricket administrators how it could be done, nobody realized that there was so much money in the sport. It was the Packer-led initiative to commercialize cricket that led to this avalanche of funds. At present, the Indian cricket board makes more money than every single other Indian sports federation put together. It is so awash in dollars, pounds and rupees that it doesn’t even know what to do with the money.

 

  When there is money to be made, everyone wants a piece of the action. So, players fix matches. Owners start betting. Administrators get greedy. And the likes of Lalit Modi become more famous (and are much richer) than the players who are allegedly the stars of the show.

 

   Where it will all end, I cannot say. But the IPL mess has proved one thing. There is money in cricket; but ultimately, the money ends up damaging cricket.