A conundrum of decisions - IPL
So the IPL is moving, the Indian Premier League is going to be held outside India, will the Bangalore Royal Challengers be the Durban Donkeys, it remains to be seen, what we have seen is the first instance of event out sourcing, the logistics of the IPL have been out sourced to the english or south african cricket boards and the BCCI will concern itself with the television deals, franchise management and player auctions. South Africa or England makes money, the franchises and BCCI get the television revenues, the advertisers like the global reach, forget the million odd spectators in India, the people can watch it on television, there is no security headache for the indian authorities, the players get to enjoy the SA or english weather (India is hot as hell in summer) its a win win win situation, but if everybody is winning, who is losing?
The analysis I find interesting is the politics that went into moving the IPL, lets dig deeper into this amazing conundrum
The Players in this saga and their agenda
1) Players: Most players will play even in Antartica for the money, a few petersons will make some noise, but come pay time, they will play (the same players who were critisizing 20-20, crowded schedules, country before self etc were the first to sign up for the auction). They dont have a say anyhow so they dont matter, though they will make some noise if the league is played in India
2) Franchises: They just want the games to start already, no IPL means no money and having sunk money into the league, a cancelled year will doom their investment. That being said they rather the game be held outside India, though they dare not suggest it. The reason being the money needed to be spent on security in India and more important they dont want to risk any players not playing due to the security concerns. The IPL is based on cricket stars, what else is the difference between the ICL, IPL and the local national 20-20 tournaments, and any star not playing (peterson or flintoff or sangakarra) will decrease the appeal of their teams, who would want to watch a bunch of indian domestic players play cricket among themselves. But they would antagonize everybody (greedy pigs right!) if they moved the games elsewhere hence their plan is to stick together, and force others to do the dirty works for them.
3) BCCI: Now this is a beast, its head is a congress stooge (sharad pawar) but the IPL head (Modi) leans towards BJP. They are with the franchises though, they share the same goals and will use whatever clout they have to get the games moved.
4) Congress: They are in a no win situation, if they garuntee security and nothing happens the opposition will pounce on them for looking for the interests of rich franchises and ignoring the common man, if something happens then their credibility is hurt and if they say no IPL then too the opposition will pounce on them for hurting India's image.
5) BJP: Anyway, yes or no, they will try to exact maximum mileage from this event
6) India People: They dont really matter, they will just watch the games thats all, though its in their interest that the games are held in India.
So how did these players play out the game
The BCCI and the franchises first come up with lame schedules, schedules which are definitely not workable and the government objects. They play this game for a while and then the BCCI states that they are going abroad because their hands are forced, might it be that they forced the government to act harsh since its in their best interests to have the game outside India, and probably paid off the congress too (its election time remember, who doesnt need some extra money). This is a win win situation for the congress and BCCI, the BCCI gets what it wants a safe, low security cost games with all the cricket stars and the congress gets some money out of a no win situation.
First the BJP makes some token noise, then they learn from Modi that some cash deal is going on between the congress and BCCI, the game goes to the secnd stage when all the congress ruled states oppose the IPL while all the BJP ruled stated give it a green signal. The BJP then sends out its poster boy Narendra Modi to garuntee total security as a last minute gamble to shame the government, but then money wins and the IPL shifts to SA. The congress is banking on the apathy of the indian cricket followers to forget this decision come election time and use the money to buy some votes elsewhere.
What is all of this to the common man, well if the IPL were staged in India it would have definitely helped his general lot as there would be spending, spending on things indian, which would mean the profits of the league trikle out outside just the players and the BCCI, but as things are the only people making money are BCCI, players, SA and the television channel. Our grounds dont get played on, our stadiums dont make money, money they would use to spruce up the stadiums which would mean more work for indians, more goods being bought in India there by helping out our economy, now this wont change the economic scenario but many such small things will definitel make a positive impact on our economy.
The analysis I find interesting is the politics that went into moving the IPL, lets dig deeper into this amazing conundrum
The Players in this saga and their agenda
1) Players: Most players will play even in Antartica for the money, a few petersons will make some noise, but come pay time, they will play (the same players who were critisizing 20-20, crowded schedules, country before self etc were the first to sign up for the auction). They dont have a say anyhow so they dont matter, though they will make some noise if the league is played in India
2) Franchises: They just want the games to start already, no IPL means no money and having sunk money into the league, a cancelled year will doom their investment. That being said they rather the game be held outside India, though they dare not suggest it. The reason being the money needed to be spent on security in India and more important they dont want to risk any players not playing due to the security concerns. The IPL is based on cricket stars, what else is the difference between the ICL, IPL and the local national 20-20 tournaments, and any star not playing (peterson or flintoff or sangakarra) will decrease the appeal of their teams, who would want to watch a bunch of indian domestic players play cricket among themselves. But they would antagonize everybody (greedy pigs right!) if they moved the games elsewhere hence their plan is to stick together, and force others to do the dirty works for them.
3) BCCI: Now this is a beast, its head is a congress stooge (sharad pawar) but the IPL head (Modi) leans towards BJP. They are with the franchises though, they share the same goals and will use whatever clout they have to get the games moved.
4) Congress: They are in a no win situation, if they garuntee security and nothing happens the opposition will pounce on them for looking for the interests of rich franchises and ignoring the common man, if something happens then their credibility is hurt and if they say no IPL then too the opposition will pounce on them for hurting India's image.
5) BJP: Anyway, yes or no, they will try to exact maximum mileage from this event
6) India People: They dont really matter, they will just watch the games thats all, though its in their interest that the games are held in India.
So how did these players play out the game
The BCCI and the franchises first come up with lame schedules, schedules which are definitely not workable and the government objects. They play this game for a while and then the BCCI states that they are going abroad because their hands are forced, might it be that they forced the government to act harsh since its in their best interests to have the game outside India, and probably paid off the congress too (its election time remember, who doesnt need some extra money). This is a win win situation for the congress and BCCI, the BCCI gets what it wants a safe, low security cost games with all the cricket stars and the congress gets some money out of a no win situation.
First the BJP makes some token noise, then they learn from Modi that some cash deal is going on between the congress and BCCI, the game goes to the secnd stage when all the congress ruled states oppose the IPL while all the BJP ruled stated give it a green signal. The BJP then sends out its poster boy Narendra Modi to garuntee total security as a last minute gamble to shame the government, but then money wins and the IPL shifts to SA. The congress is banking on the apathy of the indian cricket followers to forget this decision come election time and use the money to buy some votes elsewhere.
What is all of this to the common man, well if the IPL were staged in India it would have definitely helped his general lot as there would be spending, spending on things indian, which would mean the profits of the league trikle out outside just the players and the BCCI, but as things are the only people making money are BCCI, players, SA and the television channel. Our grounds dont get played on, our stadiums dont make money, money they would use to spruce up the stadiums which would mean more work for indians, more goods being bought in India there by helping out our economy, now this wont change the economic scenario but many such small things will definitel make a positive impact on our economy.
posted by adarsh adarsh at 12:50 PM
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