Cricket’s headlong rush towards privatisation

October 29, 2021 Industry Updates Sports

When the Indian Premier League’s founder Lalit Modi sold its first eight franchises in January 2008, the occasion was gaudy and incestuous.

Limousines decanted Bollywood stars in oversized sunglasses. Vijay Mallya, the self-styled “king of good times” who is today a bankrupt fugitive, arrived in a red Bentley, and left with Royal Challengers Bangalore. Other investors included Modi’s brother-in-law and the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Last week’s sale of two new franchises struck a different note: a dry, private, six-hour affair in Mumbai involving an elite of nine leading corporate names whittled from 22, including the Glazers, Manchester United’s owners, and Adani Group, whose success would have tested Australian cricketers’ new climate consciousness.
In media here, it barely merited a line. But the commitment of $2.13 billion to franchises in Ahmedabad and Lucknow by, respectively, CVC Capital Partners and RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, will ramify round the world.

Why? The expansion of the IPL from eight teams to 10 involves an extension of the tournament from 60 games to 74 — something long in prospect, as little economic sense is served in clubs being active only two months in 12, but further depleting the breathing space in a cricket calendar also set to be squeezed by an International Cricket Council event every year.