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When it comes
to India cricket nothing is impossible! The sheer
scale of revenues that the BCCI has been able to extract
from its cricket property today stands at a mind-boggling
$ 752 million (Rs 33.54 billion). Rs 27.24 billion
for the media rights that have gone to Nimbus Communications,
Rs 4.15 billion through selling the team sponsor rights
to Sahara and Rs 2.15 billion for sale of kit sponsor
rights to Nike. That's a massive ten-fold jump in
net worth over the the value of the same rights for
the previous four years.
And
with still more expected through the sale of mobile
telephony rights, IPTV rights, all future technologies
including ADSL, archive rights after a 72-hour period
and public exhibition and film rights, it will take
some courage to bet on just what the final tally will
be.
First
off, kudos to the new dispensation that lords over
India's national passion led by Maratha strongman
Sharad Pawar. The BCCI has pocketed a sum that its
founding fathers or its administrators, even as recently
as five years ago, could never have ever imagined
possible.
The
richest cricketing association in the world is now
arguably among sports' richest bodies in annual turnover
with the magical Rs 100 billion mark expected to be
crossed this year. All the more ironic then that a
visit to BCCI's headquarters in India's commercial
capital Mumbai reveals what a wag likens to being
little better than a mofussil post office. That's
how shabby and decrepit the seat of power of the BCCI
is.
Pay
a visit to any of the cricketing stadia in India (Mohali
in Punjab being an honourable exception). There are
those who compare many of them to zoos (and bad ones
at that) in the way spectators are fenced in with
no amenities and horrendous conditions that the paying
public have to bear with typical Indian stoicism.
The
latest issue of leading news weekly India Today
makes for interesting reading. A report in it
titled "Gone For a Toss" highlights the
fact that if the Indian cricket board does not clean
up the Delhi cricket body, the stink of mal-administration
will spread. "The DDCA is beset with crooked
administrators, compromised selectors and insecure
players" reads the picture caption in the article.
Which
brings us to the main point of this article. Now that
the numbers have been tallied, it is time for the
administrators to take over from the accountants.
If one were to make political comparisons (very apt
considering the amount of politics that goes on in
the BCCI), it could well be likened to the overthrow
of Bihar strongman Laloo Prasad Yadav by Nitish Kumar
late last year. There has been much hope and expectation
but till now little to offer by way of positive news.
People are however, still willing to give the new
Bihar chief minister time because 15 years of Laloo
raj will take some undoing.
Such
luxuries need and should not be given to the Pawarful
BCCI in terms of delivery time frames. Much has been
promised, the first of which is professionalising
the way the board is managed, with a CEO to be installed.
The mess in the different associations needs to be
sorted out, stadia seriously improved and the paying
public given the treatment they deserve.
And
most of all, letting the moolah as it were flow down
to the smaller centres. Because if there is one thing
that has come through loud and clear in the way the
new energised and vitalised Indian cricket team is
performing, it is that the real stars are coming from
smalltown India.
If
the BCCI can bring all this into its functioning now
that it has the finances to literally reach for the
sky, then even the most carping of critics will truely
appreciate vice-president and marketing panel chairman
Lalit Modi's comment made at a recent media briefing
--- that he and the other office bearers in the board
were working only for the love of the game. ...and
without even taking any remuneration for it, he was
at pains to point out.
The
BCCI has shown India the money. The question now is,
how long will the country have to wait to see the
reaping of the cricketing harvest?
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