Cricket is currently being run as a fiefdom of few individuals in India today. The hallmark of any professional enterprise should be transparency of the highest form. In the quest to literally eliminate ICL, IPL was born. They literally decimated ICL into non entity within a span of 3 years.
IPL succeeded not because of Modi factor alone but because of the infra structure and abundant sponsor’s availability. Any mediocre marketing man would have succeeded equivalent to Modi if not more with such a war chest and backing of BCCI. Anyways cricket has become almost equivalent to a status of religion with millions of fan following. Now it is time to cleanse and regulate BCCI under the home ministry or independent corporate body.
It is high time BCCI is declared a public entity requiring them to go public with a minimum pubic holding of 50% and rest being held by institutions and administrators of BCCI. All the accounts and salaries and expenses incurred by the board officials and players remuneration should be made public on quarterly basis just like any corporate set up.
Agreed that IPL is pure entertainment bandwagon. Everybody who has jumped into the bogie wants their share of publicity and return for their investment. How does one generate big bucks with the valuations of IPL teams sky rocketing ?
1) Selling their stakes to corporates at 5 to 10 times of the invested value
2) Tickets and Endorsement valuation
3) Sponsorships of cricketing gears.
4) Indoor stadium advertisement.
5) Pre and Post IPL events.
Rahul on TOI debate on Friday night (16/4/09 ) pointed out IPL is heading for a mega disaster in the making in terms of match fixing. The strategic breaks between 8th & 16th over of match, usage of walkie talkies by umpires, Bluetooth technology embedded into players etc are classic recipe for match fixing. Big Money will be exchanged underground with unofficial betting in vogue. NOW the moot question if IPL is acknowledged as purely entertainment show, than why not allow official betting is my question ?
Betting in cricket is official in UK & Australia. The people from the same country form an investigative panel for identifying match fixing what an irony. On the sidelines I heard college students have already begun betting on IPL matches. It is okies as long as it is innocent hobby without long term addiction. But what happens if they fall prey to underground elements ?
A transparent online matrix can be drawn up by the board for franchisees to run the betting ring in IPL. This would mean that the govt. can generate revenue as well as keep tab of the betting circle. Any unofficial betting should be treated as insider trading and jail term should be pronounced.
I am sure the BCCI will not loose this opportunity to quickly a launch an official website with all the details from the corporate angle. The time has come for a mass followed sport to be transparent in all aspects of administration. Let us not kill the golden goose of cricket in India. Let us harvest it ( cricket ) as a credible brand from IncredibleIndia.
Disclaimer : This article is a personal musing in the interest of protecting Cricket from murky and non transparent administration.
