It is the strange mixture of the fantasy world of sport as spectacle and the crude reality of the market that makes the IPL such a fascinating subject of study.
NOW that we are more than halfway through the first Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament, it may be time to step back and try to understand this phenomenon. Phenomenon it certainly is: hugely successful in its own terms; bringing in much more than was anticipated in terms of viewership and, therefore, advertising revenues; apparently attracting much more than the usual crowd of inveterate cricket-watchers to capture the interest and imagination of a much wider social group.
People describe the IPL as an idea whose time has come. Indeed, it was something that had been under consideration even by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for some time. There had already been the first pioneering attempt in the Indian context in the form of the breakaway Indian Cricket League (ICL), which surely was the catalyst for the IPL, even if the BCCI has chosen to punish the rebels in the most effective (and vindictive) manner possible. So, it is being argued, since there was no IPL, it had become necessary to invent one.
But what exactly is the idea, and what is so novel about it? The format of Twenty20, while relatively new, had already been introduced in international cricket matches to the point that even a World Cup was held for it. Despite the objections of purists, this shorter and more dramatic format was bound to be successful and provide a real challenge to the most traditional format of the game test cricket. It also allowed cricket to compete for viewership with other games such as football, which are great spectator sports at least partly because of the combination of convenience and controlled excitement generated by the limited time of the games.
The idea of a tournament of competing, privately owned teams made of players from all over the world took something from the football leagues of Europe, the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States and, of course, also from the ill-fated ICL. So this concept is not particularly new either.
The real novelty of the IPL does not lie in any of these features but in its open, blatant and even exuberant celebration of the commercial principle. Well before the tournament was under way, it was making headlines simply because of the huge amounts of cash involved in purchase of franchises for the teams, purchase of players, and so on. This is the first time in international cricket when such huge amounts of money have been spent, and when the motivation for the game has been so completely about making money.
Thus, cricketers were auctioned off in a manner that resembled not so much the cattle market (to which it has been compared even by some of the cricketers involved) as the market for prize race horses. The physical attributes, past record, personality traits and other relevant features of individual cricketers were broadcast, analysed and considered primarily with a view to determining the appropriate bidding prices much in the same way and for the same reasons that race horses are described and assessed.
This approach has dominated the attitude to the cricketers through the subsequent matches. Thus, the media regularly monitor the value for money provided by each player, comparing the amount paid for his purchase with the performance indicators from the matches he has played in. It is likely that we will see a more precise tabulation when the tournament is over, of the value of each ball bowled, each run made, each catch held, and so on in pecuniary terms rather than any more general perception of satisfaction or appreciation.
This is mainly because the amounts involved in the cricketers contracts have been huge, especially for some star players. The frenetic pace of the bidding surprised everyone, including perhaps those who were actually doing it. The adrenalin was running so high that if the BCCI had not specified a maximum limit of $5 million a player, it would probably have been exceeded. A top player like Adam Gilchrist, with more than a decades experience in first class international cricket, has admitted that this single contract involves much more money than he has made in his entire career so far. And Gilchrist is by no means among the highest priced cricketer in the IPL.
But they are certainly being made to work for their money. Since the entire focus is on entertainment, the idea is to maximise the use of the players. So, they have to play an enormous number of matches in a relatively short time, involving gruelling travel and punishing performance requirements. This is a complicated system of travelling circuses without a circus usual consideration for the capacities and requirements of the human and animal performers. One match played in Delhi started at three in the afternoon when the temperature was 42 degrees C; several matches have more or less required teams to go straight from airports to venues.
The other novel feature in India, but perhaps not elsewhere, is the emphasis on sheer spectacle, rather than the game itself to provide the entertainment. The controversial cheerleaders are only one element in this. The IPL has been notable throughout for its dependence on celebrities film stars, flamboyant or well-known businessmen, even some of the more glamorous politicians. They have purchased teams; they attend matches regularly to cheer their teams on and are shown on television doing so; they provide other fodder for the media in the form of quick quotes and television bytes on some aspects of the games.
In this process, the unholy alliance (or should we say synergy?) between a commercial venture of this kind and the media in general has been fully exposed. The main sources of news for citizens newspapers, television news channels, FM radio are all completely obsessed by the IPL, which may even take up around half of the medias time and space. And the multitude and frequency of matches mean that there is always something to provide feed for what passes as information today. This is the ultimate reality television, providing not only the thrills of each match, but also moments of pathos and bathos in the antics of the players on and off the field.
The IPL business model is apparently based primarily on advertising revenues and other spin-offs, followed by ticket fees. The phenomenal success so far has ensured that some agents have already made a lot of money: the BCCI, for sure, the cricketers themselves, and the news channel with the television rights. But it is not yet clear whether the team owners will make profits at all, especially given the huge amounts transacted for the players and the other costs of running a team.
The IPL shows that it is completely possible (as the economists Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy had argued long ago) for monopoly capitalism to create social wants and then proceed to fill them. It is also possible to transplant the structure of league systems that are rooted in different contexts and have evolved historically into a completely different environment and seemingly make the whole thing work.
The English premier league for football, for instance, grew out of the practice of neighbourhood teams competing in a friendly fashion and developed into the giant commercial venture that it is today because private entrepreneurs utilised this organic growth. By contrast, in the case of the IPL, everything is being simultaneously created: the public appreciation of the format, the loyalty to a particular team, the passion of the spectators, and so on.
And the fact that it is so openly about money and profits rather than any more noble motivation does not seem to be a deterrent at all. Instead, it is being seen as creating incentives for young men (not young women, unfortunately) from all socio-economic backgrounds to take cricket seriously as a means of material advancement.
But it is this strange mixture of the fantasy world of sport as spectacle and the crude reality of the market that makes the IPL such a fascinating subject of study. This is popular culture imposed from above, and it will be interesting to see how far the process can go.
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