PLATFORM:The Indian Premier League is the perfect storm of the sports business, writes RICHARD GILLIS
THERE'S A sporting revolution taking place in India this week, the like of which we haven't seen before.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is the sports business's perfect storm: the pulling power of cricket in India, spiced up by Twenty20 - a short version of the game - and laid across a backdrop of the second fastest growing economy in the world.
It's a tournament that runs for 44 days, boasts the cream of the game's international talent and is awash with cash. There is so much money flowing through the IPL that it threatens to undermine the way the game is played and watched around the world. It's brash, vulgar even, and feeds a growing appetite for innovation among the brand and media community. It also leaves every other sports governing body in the world scratching their heads.
The suddenness of it all is intoxicating, and novel. The people who sell sport have always put a high value on history: shared moments going back generations are milked for all they're worth. But the IPL is not trading on its history - it doesn't have one. It was little more than an idea, one that raised $1.026 billion (€646 million) from broadcasters Sony Entertainment Television (SET) and the World Sports Group agency with not much more than a PowerPoint demonstration.
"There is an inevitable conflict between what the sports federations want and what the public wants," Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC, told me recently. "Governing bodies always put too much emphasis on tradition."
To put its idea into action, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has copied elements of the American franchise model. Teams such as the Mumbai Indians and the Kolkata Knight Riders have been created and sold to high-profile figures such as Vijay Mallya, the owner of Kingfisher Beer (Bangalore franchise); Bollywood actor Preity Zinta (Mohali franchise); and Shahrukh Khan, India's biggest film star (Kolkata franchise).
For a point of reference, the cost of the Mumbai team was roughly equivalent to what Randy Lerner paid for Aston Villa, a club with a history going back to the 19th century.
Each franchise is allowed to bid a maximum of $5 million at auction on players. At the top end, stars like Mahendra Dhoni, the Beckham of India, netted well over $1 million.
The IPL contracted these players, guaranteeing them each a minimum of $200,000 per season for three years. A total of $30 million was underwritten.
The average player salary for their six-week tour of duty was $500,000, a life-changing amount of money for many.
Beyond cricket, the event has become a potent symbol of the new India. A population of more than a billion people is driving an economy of $906 billion. It is Asia's third-largest economy, which, despite recent signs of overheating, is still growing at well over 8 per cent.
Other figures offer succour for the IPL's long-term ambitions. MindShare research shows that 47 per cent of the Indian population is under 20, a figure that will reach 55 per cent by 2015.
But one other number offers a revealing insight into the country's sporting economy. That number is four: the haul of medals, none of them gold, that individual Indian competitors have won in the history of the Olympics. Cricket is religion but, for many Indians, sport is something to watch, not play.
The rise of the IPL shows how far sport moves when left to the free market. The defence of the game's traditional forms is left to governing bodies such as the England and Wales Cricket Board, which are left looking increasingly like the old command economies of the Soviet era, making wooden shoes as television beams in pictures of Mercedes-Benz and Starbucks.
They are suddenly virtually defenceless against the rapacious commercial ambitions of India's media elite, beyond trying to keep their players true to existing contracts. The game's traditional constituency hates it, and fears for the future.
After a year or two, the cricket calendar is likely to alter dramatically as growth becomes the driver of IPL franchise owners seeking a return on their investment. What will happen to test cricket, with its "pauses and longueurs that test the patience and understanding of the uninitiated", asked Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh. The IPL demands no more of its audience than to turn up and pay.
