No cricketer likes a string of zeros but when this string is attached to his pay cheque like an endless necklace of pearls he just cannot complain! Yes that is what is actually happening if you have been going through the papers or browsing through the websites for the past 3-4 days. The IPL bidding has created more buzz than the Bombay Stock Exchange. 8 franchisees have been battling it out to bid for the best players in the world from a pool of 78. Welcome to the ultra modern form of cricket i.e. T-20 where its all about the three hour rush of adrenalin.
Consider this: Ishant Sharma who has barely spent 6 months in international cricket has been bought by SRK's Kolkata franchise for a whopping 3.6 crores!! This when simplified turns out to be Rs 1 lakh per delivery! Indian captain M.S. Dhoni who has been bought by the Chennai based franchise for 6 crores will make thrice the money that a Delhi University professor would make in a career spanning 35 years and that too in just 44 days!! I am sure these stats are sufficient to convince you of the money that is being poured into the game.
Now in all this hush hush one news that i am sure most of you would have missed is the fact that this IPL T-20 league has eaten the sponsorship revenue that could have gone to the athletes preparing for the Beijing Olympics scheduled to get underway in August this year. Indias thriving advertising industry sees the IPL as the potential goldmine and even the franchisees are now looking to get individual sponsorships. Multiple world billiards champion Geet Sethi, a promoter of a sports fund dedicated to funding athletes with potential of winning India a first individual Olympic gold medal, voiced his concern in a newspaper article on Thursday saying "The fanatical obsession called cricket has just joined hands with the film world to create a new pastime (I consciously refrain from calling it sport) where it will gain even further visibility and media hype fuelled by both cricket and Bollywood". He also said "This in turn will almost certainly divert sponsorship which could have gone to disciplines with a genuine chance of winning India that Olympic gold."
The IPL has attracted over $1.7 billion in franchise sales, television and promotion rights over a 10-year period in a cricket-mad country with the fastest growing major economy after China. This fantastic success of cricket packaging is being played out at a time when our Olympic medal hopes, who will pit their skills against the best in the world in only five months at Beijing, are starved of funds. Despite being the world's second most populous nation, India has only won four individual medals in Olympic history since they sent their first official team to the Summer Games in 1928. Most of the athletes are finding it difficult to put together a budget for training and international competition in preparation for the games like archery, boxing, athletics, wrestling and swimming.
I am not against cricket or for that matter even cricketers, infact cricket happens to be my favourite sport too. But what hurts me is that the Sports Ministry inspite of receiving requests from Sports Authority of India[SAI] (the body responsible for ensuring that all sports in our country get equal attention) about the infrastructure to buy equipment for archers, shooters and badminton players has simply asked the SAI to buy them on its own!!! What also hurts me is that when 160 crores can be spent on buying cricketers in a matter of hours, cant the Sports Ministry direct some funds towards buying shuttle cocks,bullets,bows & arrows? We might lose out on creating the future Karnam Malleswaris , Rajyawardhan Singh Rathores, Aparna Popats and Saina Nehwals if this trend continues. Does anyone remember Samresh Jung? I am sure no one does, inspite of being awarded the best athlete at the commonwealth games in Melbourne the poor guy got no sponsorship! Probably the BCCI can now think of sponsoring some worthy athletes if not the Sports Ministry!!
Cricket certainly has moved from being a 5 star sport to a 7 star sport but i guess the other sports will also have to be modelled on the new IPL format to attract sponsors & viewership so that the gap between cricket (Modern National Sport of our country) and other sports is bridged.
Till then all i can say is "Cheque De" & "Cheque Le".
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9 comments:
GOOD one.....
i appreciate ur effort......
finally after reading it........i think that now i should change my stream to CRICKET :)
CHEQUE DE.....
a well thought out and written blog i must say .. and the solutions you offer too are very earnest :) ... I somehow get a feeling that the bcci intended the whole ipl diaspora to be a money spinner .. you have a format of the game that could give any blockbuster film a run for its money .. the huge corporate investments that IPL generated was partly because of the masala element that is attached to it .. i only wish the SAI could come up with a plan to give a mass appeal to the olympics which the would attract huge amounts of private capital.. :) .. the other way out is to direct some funds generated by the big brothers to their poorer siblings ..which is an idea that has been talked of for ages and no implementation has seen the light of day .. everyone feels something needs to be done. only nobodys doing it .. and we are all depressed about it :( .. lol ive written a miniblog here.. its a credit your thought provoking article :P :)
hey .........really nice observation mannnn........after readin dis i seriously feel dat m i waistin ma time here or wat??
shall i also go in cricket!!
in india no matter whateva happens the rich continue to be richer n d poor continue to be poorer....same goes wid cricket ipl wud make thse much hyped n talked abt players more popular n richer whereas other athletes who have done india proud on numerous occasion wud have to struggle still hard for name n fame
...gud work mate , u hav picked up a nice point highlighting da attention reqd by other sportsmen n athletes
i must say for a start its "awesome work " .. keep it goin .. wish to read more from u . the lines i enjoyed the most from this piece of work : "when 160 crores can be spent on buying cricketers in a matter of hours, cant the Sports Ministry direct some funds towards buying shuttle cocks,bullets,bows & arrows?"
ur contribution shud definitely awaken the crowd..
~anka
CRICKET NOT OBSESSION,A REASON TO CELEBRATE
wel m prety much convincd about te step motherly
treatment being metted out to other sports in
being comparison to cricket but every ting is not
such as it means out to be.......cricket came into
the consideration only wen people started seeing
their fellow role models doin wel... pitted against
the best in the world.........take for.eg. karnam
malleshwari and rajyavardhan singh.... after they
won, their respective state's showered them with
cash,land and not to mentin the extra added perks
that had gone their way in freebies.....they took
the whole of nation by pride, but what happened
after that... not a single worthy performance by
them to mention here and that to after their
expenses were taken out by the government......
seriously people do need reasons for going to other
sports ............... and that can only be done
by consistent performances ....wel talking about
IPL which i can make out is another version of
what they were having in hockey IHL.....initially
crowd was there but they startd flowing away by
the performances which were showcased......see its
not that v indians don't appreciate other sports
but v dont have any reasons except few exceptions .
........and mind u in order to generate money for
other sports v need to have more people and f
ollowers of the game to be coming in and which can
only be done by PERFORMANCES that can make people
think and take notice of the games other than
cricket.
Tinselisation of cricket
Icon players of cricket being sold off at exhorbent rates!
Its certainly not the gentleman s game any more.The audacity of over exposing the game is certainly appalling especially when other sports like hockey(India s national game), football, kabbadi bleed of lack of infrastructure and support.
we need to awaken and give much needed respect to other sports.
Bravo!!!
A very very brave attempt indeed, I must say, for a first post. The issues you have touched are indeed thought provoking and will turn many a head. How I wish all that you wish for would actually translate into reality. The apathy with which the Government treats every other sport is partly due to sheer ignorance of the people and the absolute bias shown by the media. Even the fact that someone like Vishwanathan Anand being the Numero Uno in his field would be completely overshadowed if at all India were playing against Kenya. The true heros of the country are long forgotten as we indians have a extremely fickle memory. The fact that the wife of an Olympic Gold medallist has to wash utensils today to make a living, is shocking and completely unheard of in any other country perhaps.
"Change starts from within", they say. So a paradigm shift in the mindset of poeple is whats required. Lets start celebrating our heros and show the respect they truly deserve. This inturn will motivate the youth to go on and achieve cult status that cricketers enjoy today and make every Indian proud. May our Tricolour fly higher!!! Jai Hind!!
really a gud job dude...u hav raised an issue thst most of us dnt evn think abt...its very true that the indian sports association is jst tryin to make cricket a richer and more popular game jst igmorin the needs of other games and players...evn hockey...the performance of our hockey team ws mch better than the t-20 performance bt all the riches were showered over the cricketers... cricket is really a cheque-de game....
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