IPL - A cheap imitation of European Football Leagues

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Being familiar with the way how things are run in European Football Leagues and specifically the English Premier League(EPL), I find the Indian Premier League(IPL) of cricket a cheap imitation that gives a quick entertainment and quick money for the organizers.

Premier League

What is "Premier" about it ? May be the first of its kind in the cricket fraternity ? In the football world, every country will have multiple levels of league championships with the top one being played with the best in the country. Every year few teams that are at the bottom get relegated to the next tier one and the champions in the second rung gets promoted to the first(Premier) league. And there are usually at least 3 tiers of leagues going on at the same time. This also makes it interesting at the top and bottom of the league - top ones fight for the cup whereas the bottom ones fight to avoid the drop. In fact there are other spots to fight for as well in the European leagues like the Champions cup and the Europa cup as well. So in my view, there is nothing "Premier" about IPL - it is the first cricket league may be!

Business Model

The business model of most of the professional clubs are based on the fact that if they can build a world class football team within the budgets they have, they can attract fans and sponsors and media thereby making money out of it. Building the team means running academies that nurture talent not just from local towns, but anywhere else in the world. It is not a short term arrangement where some owners throw money and create a franchise for a month or so to play a shorter version of the game to make some quick money, which seems to be the current business model of IPL. I am not sure if the movie actors are out there because of their love for cricket or to develop the game.

Club as an Organization

A club is in fact an institution that is built over time and is run as any business organization with a P&L. The club is not a short term arrangement of players who are bid for from various places like what the IPL is, it is in fact their home while they play for the club. There is a well structured organization and a board that oversees the running of the club. It is not the franchises, but well organized clubs that keeps the leagues going.

Tailoring the Game

The game of football is played exactly like it is played elsewhere and for ages. You don't really need any tailoring to get the fans attracted to the game. May be this is a fundamental flaw with the way cricket is, which doesn't really fit into an entertainment game that can be made part of normal people's life. You either need 5 days or one day to really enjoy the game. But I am not sure if they do justice to the game by tailoring it.

Decision Making

The owners of the Premiership doesn't make decisions about the team, instead they choose a manager to run the club and give them a budget to work with. The manager makes all decisions - he is accountable for the results he promises within the constraints of the club. That means they are the ones who are fired if team doesn't click. The buck stops with the Manager. Owners making decisions about the captain and players are typically rare. Again, this could be a problem with the game itself. Cricket has an accountability issue - where does the buck stop ? With the Captain ? Coach ? Owner or the Selection Committee ?

Home Games are played at Home

If you have terrorists out to shoot the fans, then there is no game - it is that simple. You don't run elsewhere to a second home. It was really funny that IPL is being played in South Africa! But when you are after quick money, these things don't matter.

Fans and Followers

You don't have to hire cheer leaders from elsewhere, they are fans first and cheer leaders next. Again, the short term drive of IPL doesn't help here too.

Conclusion

Cricket needs to discover their own league - not just blindly copy some aspects of the successful leagues in other games just to make money. But they can definitely adopt the basics of building a club and league from them. It cannot be done in one or two seasons, it has to be a long drawn effort. The game is a bit complex to expect it to become as popular as the football leagues of Europe. I am not too sure if T20 has trimmed the game well to make it an entertainment sport, sometimes it appears that it is not really cricket. So don't make cricket look like other games, let cricket be cricket.