Indian Cricket Reaches Commercial Maturity

These days, sports like Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Soccer are huge commercial eco-systems. Nimbus Communications recently bought Digital Media rights for Indian Cricket for $612 Million in a four year global deal, underscoring Cricket’s status gain in the big-money world of sports marketing.

Cricket, however, owes its commercial maturity to a man named Jagmohan Dalmiya.

An excerpt from his profile by Tanmoy Mitra:

“He is considered a master strategist, an opportunist who plays the waiting game and a man who almost never loses his cool. In essence, Jagmohan Dalmiya has all the qualities of a politician who has been accused of bringing politics in to cricket in sharp contradiction to the adage that sports and politics do not mix. But even his worst critics will admit that Jagmohan Dalmiya’s business vision has transformed Indian cricket.

If the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the richest cricketing body in the world, Dalmiya deserves his fair share of credit. Everyone, from the players to those remotely associated with the game, is making serious money. His marketing skills have taken the game to new geographies. From Bangladesh to the Netherlands and Bangkok to Toronto, Dalmiya has explored every possible angle to popularise cricket around the world.

As a cricketer, he opened the batting and kept wicket for one of Kolkata’s leading clubs and also represented his university. Dalmiya joined the BCCI in 1979 and played a major role in bringing the cricket world cup to India and Pakistan in 1987. In 1992-93, as secretary of the board, he strategised the commercialisation of the game, which turned around the financial status of the BCCI, bringing the body some serious money — the board’s balance sheet, which showed a deficit of Rs81.60 lakh in 1992-93 had declared a working profit of Rs15.34 lakh by the end of the next financial year.

Dalmiya brought the 1996 World Cup to the Indian subcontinent by promising a larger share of profits to the International Cricket Council’s 23 associate members, should they vote for it to be held in the subcontinent. The world cup was a huge financial success for the Asian Cricket Council.

Globalisation of cricket entered a new phase with Dalmiya being elected chairman of the ICC in 1997. Expansion of cricket began at this stage. From Asia to Europe and to the North American continent, cricket generated millions in sponsorships and television rights and the ICC became a rich sporting body. With improved infrastructure, cricket started to be recognised seriously in the world of sports. It will soon join the Olympics as a competitive global sport.”

Nimbus Communications bid $612.18 million (Rs 2,714 crore) to bag the four-year global media rights for cricket in India, clearly an endorsement of the sport as a leading advertising vehicle.

There are many other sports, worldwide, with affinities within specific cultures. The Chinese love Table Tennis, for instance.

A couple of years back, a new venture called The Tennis Channel was launched, which counts amongst its investors Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, as well as Battery Ventures, Bain Capital, and leading sports marketing firm, IMG.

Digital Media could benefit immensely if some of those other under-marketed sports are brought up a few notches, and, needless to say, so would the sports.