Why IPL shouldn’t be allowed to die

NEW DELHI: Vinod Rai is livid. The former Comptroller and Auditor General of India, who shook the nation with his audit googlies, is outraged at the mere mention of the state of affairs at the Indian Premier League.
" IPL is a great property, but it’s been ruined by mismanagement by BCCI. The sheer commercialisation of the whole thing…when money and power, those things get together it unfortunately ruins sports bodies," said Rai, a cricket aficionado, who played the game in college and follows all its formats.

Rai is not alone. His sentiment is shared by others with keen interest in cricket and alarmed by the amount of money and political power that has been used to cloud the game’s prospects.

Nearly a week after the Lodha committee handed out punishments to two errant IPL teams, the debate has moved from a prospective clean-up to questions about the survival of the world’s most popular cricket format. Blaring headlines and breathless commentary about the impending death and doom of IPL cannot hide the fact that it is the most popular format today.

Even a casual look at numbers will reinforce this point. The eighth season of the IPL this year was watched by 192 million people on TV, almost double the viewership of the first tournament. The platform is popular among advertisers and helped broadcaster Multi Screen Media rake in Rs 1,000 crore in revenue.

The final this year between Mumbai Indians and the now-banned CSK on May 24 reached 49.4 million individuals in 20.7 million homes. In such a situation, should the format be allowed to die? Or should it be given a fresh lease of life through a comprehensive cleanup? Experts are unanimous in their recommendation.

"It is detox time for IPL," said Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director at Ogilvy & Mather India. "The brand has been hurt by these issues for sure and the brand has to recover. Reality and perception both have to be cleaned up."

Many cricket lovers say that money has started dictating the game, which has been hijacked by politicians, corporate honchos and power brokers. "I find it ridiculous that a chief minister is in a cricket management body of a country. Have they no other business? Their job is to govern the country and not run cricket in India," said TSR Subramanian, former cabinet secretary, who played cricket for his college in Kolkata.

Some passionate followers of the game believe it’s time for players like Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid to take charge, just as the Association of Tennis Professionals ended the monopoly of the Men’s Tennis Council in professional tennis in 1989.

"Today, the ATP is an extremely powerful body and it has cleaned up the sport all over the world. Here, I expected a Dravid or a Kumble to speak out. I expected 10 of them to speak out," said Subramanian. Experts have also suggested bringing the BCCI under the purview of a regulator.

The negative publicity and sentiment, especially after a series of scandals have started affecting valuations. IPL’s brand value was $3.5 billion in 2015, before the tournament, compared with $3.2 billion in the same period in 2014.

According to brand valuation firm American Appraisal, even if IPL were to auction two more teams to replace CSK and Rajasthan Royals, the league’s brand value would decline. "Even if there is an eight-team tournament next year, the brand value of the league will decline by a significant 10-15%," said Varun Gupta, managing director of American Appraisal India.

The problem, however, is that bulk of the Indian cricket-watching public is slowly moving away from other formats. Overall cricket viewership is down and viewership of one days and test matches has also fallen, according to TAM data.

Since 2008, viewership of cricket has fallen 40% when measured on the basis of GRPs per week. IPL’s popularity, on the other hand, has been growing.

"To clean up, it has to start from the top and it’s not an easy job. BCCI has to cleanse itself. The Lodha committee has done us a favour by just raising the carpet. There is still a lot of muck below the carpet," said cricket legend Bishen Singh Bedi.

Experts believe obtaining BCCI’s accounts by way of a Right to Information request could go a long way in establishing trust. "There is no reason why the accounts of the IPL or the accounts of BCCI should not be available for public scrutiny. If I were seeking to be heading BCCI, what do I have to hide?" asked Rai.