To understand the huge amounts involved in the DLF IPL, sample this: The second edition of Indian Premier League has been insured for $286 million, more than double the amount, $125 million, spent last season, because of the terror threat perception this year. Cricket news reports have said that Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has the highest individual insurance cover of $10.5 million. Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh follow behind with Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya of Mumbai Indians commanding the highest price among overseas players. Such sums were never bandied about in international cricket until now; until the advent of the IPL!
IPL Chairman Lalit Modi’s business acumen and conviction that the IPL is about entertainment and not just about cricket has ensured that a host of promotional activities are part of the IPL. The sedate, correct game of cricket is suddenly replete with all manner of Americanisations: cheerleaders, Timeouts (we’re calling it strategy breaks though), contests and glitzy events; all, unbelievably, part of a supposedly domestic cricket tournament!
The commercial interests of the IPL ensures that there are all kinds of innovative means to bring in the moolah; and the strategy breaks are just one way to maximise the income from TV adverts. That IPL has altered cricket is undeniable that we accept it sooner rather than later is desirable.
Let us not pretend even to ourselves that IPL is anything other than a business proposition: it takes the most popular sport of the most populous democracy of the world and blends in the right mix of Bollywood which is the country’s other most favourite pastime and presto! You have a winner! The Bollywood presence in IPL is hard to miss, the way that Lalit Modi and Shah Rukh Khan appear at any and all press conferences rather like Siamese twins, tells you that if Lalit Modi is the face of IPL, SRK is its other even more popular face.
If the South Africans have bent over backwards to make the Indian jamboree feel welcome and at home; that is commercial considerations too; a love of cricket yes, but commercial considerations mainly.
So as you gear up to watch some scintillating cricket and witness the beautiful people from Bollywood very much in evidence, remember we are watching cricket re dux, cricket in its new and yes even improved avatar!
IPL Chairman Lalit Modi’s business acumen and conviction that the IPL is about entertainment and not just about cricket has ensured that a host of promotional activities are part of the IPL. The sedate, correct game of cricket is suddenly replete with all manner of Americanisations: cheerleaders, Timeouts (we’re calling it strategy breaks though), contests and glitzy events; all, unbelievably, part of a supposedly domestic cricket tournament!
The commercial interests of the IPL ensures that there are all kinds of innovative means to bring in the moolah; and the strategy breaks are just one way to maximise the income from TV adverts. That IPL has altered cricket is undeniable that we accept it sooner rather than later is desirable.
Let us not pretend even to ourselves that IPL is anything other than a business proposition: it takes the most popular sport of the most populous democracy of the world and blends in the right mix of Bollywood which is the country’s other most favourite pastime and presto! You have a winner! The Bollywood presence in IPL is hard to miss, the way that Lalit Modi and Shah Rukh Khan appear at any and all press conferences rather like Siamese twins, tells you that if Lalit Modi is the face of IPL, SRK is its other even more popular face.
If the South Africans have bent over backwards to make the Indian jamboree feel welcome and at home; that is commercial considerations too; a love of cricket yes, but commercial considerations mainly.
So as you gear up to watch some scintillating cricket and witness the beautiful people from Bollywood very much in evidence, remember we are watching cricket re dux, cricket in its new and yes even improved avatar!
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