By Kapil Dev
The ashes, the historic cricket test series between the English and Australian national teams, is well underway in Britain right now. But the bigger cricket news is thousands of kilometers away in India, where billions of dollars are pouring into the Indian Cricket League (where I am on the board) and the Indian Premier League, which pits teams like the Kolkota Knight Riders and the Mumbai Indians against teams like the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Chennai Super Kings.
The ICL, which held its first tournament in 2007, and the IPL, which started last year, are the outgrowth of a boom in Indian cricket that began when the national team won the World Cup in 1983, and has accelerated dramatically in recent years. Back then, only a few dozen players could make a living at cricket, and fans had to settle for just one hour of sports programming per week. Now there are at least four channels broadcasting sports 24 hours a day, and top Indian cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar and M. S. Dhoni have suddenly achieved rock-star status, with salaries to match. Last year some of India's biggest companies, like Reliance Industries, bid a total of $725 million to acquire one of eight IPL franchises--instantaneously making the teams among the highest valued in global sports. International media outfits bought annual global rights for $120 million, a figure on par with rights to broadcast the National Hockey League, which has been around for 90 years.
Cricket reigns supreme in India in part because it is virtually the only game in town. Unlike in cricket's birthplace, England, where world-class athletes play football, tennis, and other sports, and all compete for attention and marketing dollars, India's superstars are found in just one sport. Result: a young, growing fan base that is increasingly seeing there's a life to be made in professional sports--and the possibility that India could soon become not just a global economic powerhouse but a global sports powerhouse as well.
Dev, one of the greatest-ever all-rounders, is the former captain of the Indian national cricket team and a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy.
