Cricket, capitalism, culture

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that all of its franchise owners have deep pockets. Most know that profits can hardly be dreamt of in the short term. While some like Vijay Mallya and Mukesh Ambani are in it for brand benefits to begin with, Shah Rukh Khan has already declared that he expects profits only in the long run.

And this is where the economics of what appears a faultless business proposition can go wrong. We now know that top honchos of the ECB will all be in attendance at Bangalore to note down key points for their own version of IPL a year down the line. Competition is in the offing and will dilute the quality of cricket on offer. Unless cricket expands its base to newer shores, quality players will become rare commodities if competition opens up in the UK in 2010. And what will determine the longevity of IPL is the quality of cricket on offer.

Will Ponting and Symonds, for example, play with equal intensity that they do when wearing the baggy green? Does money equal nationalism as a rallying force? Or will the Australians and English continue to choose India after the ECB is successful in brokering a lucrative broadcast deal of its own in 2010?

Another stumbling block that threatens the economic success of IPL in the short term is the ICC’s unwillingness to carve out a window for the tournament in its Future Tours Programme. With the Australians, South Africans, West Indians and New Zealanders all gone a few weeks into the competition, the star value of the teams will certainly have diminished midway. With dates for the 2009 competition clashing with multiple bilateral series, it will be of interest to note who holds nerve in the long run, the ICC or the IPL governing council. The one time the ICC clashed with innovative private entrepreneurship in the 1970s, it was humiliated at the hands of Kerry Packer. If the IPL humiliates it again, control of the game’s most lucrative version may well slip from the ICC’s hands. Alternatively, the IPL could end up as just another domestic competition.