This is not cricket” is an old exclamation that should never get out of date. It refers to something that is not fair, whatever the specifics of the exact rules. An example of this game would be a bowler who is a non-striker. The key is knocking to release the bail. The crease too early without at least issuing a prior run-out warning. Similarly, in an auction, a hammer being brought down without a look around the hall is not cricket , so to speak. Etiquette Evolved for All Winning Be fair and square—a descriptor we can probably apply The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will raise Rs 48,390 crore through this week’s e-auction of the rights to broadcast and webcast the live matches of the Indian Premier League (IPL). After all the bidding and dusting, the BCCI could have got almost three times the bid for these rights five years ago. For that, it must thank not only an online enthusiasm for viewing, but also a new explosion of rivalry for TV eyeballs. We should both be proud of us. Together, they reveal the beating of a consumer economy as it should be: booming and leading signs of competition.
We should give the credit for the success of IPL to BCCI. The introduction of this T20 competition as an annual jamboree in 2008 led to nothing less than a cricketing revolution, in one of which the role of organizer went far beyond Aesop’s fly ride. It was a case of “Think Global, Act Local” in action. With teams named by Indian cities, the inclusion of foreign players and its rulebook innovations, the IPL’s dazzling Bollywood extraction was only a small part of how the idea of club sports became an Indian spectacle. Today, periodic snappy face-offs outside cinema define the game and city-wise investors in the franchise can be given the smuggling of watching the BCCI coffers flourish. Under the terms of the IPL, 10 team owners are entitled to half of their proceeds from such auctions. This time the media rights were divided into bundles, as a result of which each franchise could rely on it. 2,420 crore in five seasons. More money to go around has also increased the generosity of the BCCI. At the end of IPL 2022, it honored its pitch curator and groundsman 1.25 crores. This week, it hiked pensions for former cricketers and umpires. For example, former Test players will get 60,000 per month, up 60%. Given the gross lifestyle gap between the older and later cast, such a hike is particularly enjoyable.
Impressively, the BCCI didn’t even let the Covid pandemic hold the IPL back. In 2020, it moved locations in the UAE to a bio-bubble. Its global counterpart, the International Cricket Council, saw its revenue decline that year, before staging a recovery in 2021 that took its topline down to around $462 million, still below the 2019 score of $626 million. Was. In contrast, the flexibility of the BCCI is a matter of conjecture. On its website, the latest annual report is for the financial year 2016-17, which is very old. Its total income that year was reported to be approx. 1,892 crore ( Of this, 1,0368 million were from media rights and approx. 366 crores was its IPL surplus). As an autonomous trust, the BCCI is not run by the government, although the political influence on its governance has always been evident. As a sports promotion agency (rather than a business), its tax exemption was upheld by a tribunal last year. Still, given the image benefits of people’s natural curiosity and openness, why it hasn’t updated its financial status online for half a decade clearly defies logic. Legally correct or not, it’s not just cricket.