How much is justified

These days I’m getting a bit irritated with the news of player remunerations. With respect to soccer and recently with respect to cricket. I dont have a problem with people earning much, or on what and where they spend all that money. Someone who spends money in the best way would earn my respect.

Well, I know it doesnt matter much anyways…

Inspired by the soccer world, cricket is taking the same turn. So much of money is being thrown on players. Someone did a research, IIMA probably, on how the amount is worked upon, and came out with numbers saying every run, every catch, every wicket counts. I used to think cricket is played as a team. Not anymore, the fraternity seems to think that a few good players are good enough. And guess what, every player would now be playing in his own interest.

Its just that it doesnt sink well to know that you and me, and that poor farmer toiling his way for a livelihood is made to pay for all this, indirectly. The players are paid by the clubs. This means that the club earns much more than what they actually end up paying the players. Most of this money comes not just the amount collected as part of the tickets but from the television rights. Television companies get their money from advertisements. Advertisement expenses are reclaimed by companies by marking up the cost into the final price of things that you and me buy.

May be the government should limit the amount spent on advertising as these directly add to the cost of producing things.

Whats the point in writing all this, Indians are so much addicted to cricket that now its more like drug addiction. You and I cant live without it. We still see crowds in front of shops displaying tubes watching some match, obstructing whatever is left to resemble as sidewalk? Is there a time when you didnt logon to cricinfo or any news site just to keep tab on whats happening?

And just like weeds this is going to cost us a lot more, while the intermediaries will laugh all the way to the bank….

 

IPL -I’ll Pay for this league

They talked and talked about it, the fought and fought over it, the time has come, the show has begun and its seems to have the right proportion of the magic potion. I’m talking about the IPL (Indian Premier League), the lastest and coolest cricket matches on planet earth, happen here.

Though I’m not sure how soon the investments are going to pay off, and how much or how soon fan following will be there for each of the individual teams, it is on the right track. Each team is backed by a tycoon, and Cricket in India will fetch money any day.

But this is not a new thing, Zee televisions Subash chandra had created a similar version called the India Cricket League with 8 private teams. For some reason the matches conducted by Zee are called unofficial and hence not much current players are in the game. This doesnt seem to attract much attention like what IPL has been getting these days.

The funny part of the whole thing is that, almost all countries fear that this might affect their country and county cricket seasons. Since ICC hasnt allocated fixed period of this IPL, there is potential conflicts in schedule between IPL and cricket happening around the world.

But BCCI has deep pockets and a huge market on its side to go and do what ever it pleases. I wonder if government would think of giving tax breaks to encourage the sports or would tighten the tax norms to get more revenue. In my opinion, if there is any taxes imposed, most probably it will be passed on to the innocent customer who wants to see his favourites, be it cricket stars or the bollywood stars who own the cricket clubs; he end up coughing up the money. May be the Police should jump in and charge some money for providing security and managing traffic at cities where the matches are being held.

Oh yeah, you and me will have to shell out more money for all the products whose manufactures will give advertisements during the matches. Ofcourse they are going to divide the whole money into the total population, being such a hugely populated country we will not notice the few paise raise in money.

All bickering apart, looks like IPL is all set to be the game of the future. Folks who watch soccer know that the English Premier league has more fan following than even the world cup. The IPL matches being in the format of 20-20 (T20), is certainly having all the potential to become a winner. It does provide a solid 3 hour entertainment. Gone are the days when teams were scoring around 250 runs in 50 overs and calling it a difficult target, they are scoring 200+ in just 20 overs. Well, thats the whole point of T20 matches right, we need high scoring matches in short time, who has the time to sit whole day to see a match!

Long live cricket, long live cricket fans, long live BCCI.