Packed calendar, or taking audiences and spectators for granted?

Are cricket administrators taking TV audiences and ground spectators for granted?

The Champions League Twenty20 final is on a Friday.

The 2008 2009 Champions Trophy final was on a Monday.

The Ind-SL-NZ tri-series final was on a Monday.

How do you explain 'grand' finals being held on week-days? It perhaps makes sense to have the final on a Saturday, with the Sunday being the spare day in case it rains on the parade.

But Mondays? Is it because TV channels don't want to have too many sporting events over the weekend, thereby risking advertisement revenue? But this is cricket, and when India is involved, the advertisers flock! No?

Is this because the schedule has become so jam-packed that there's absolutely no other option?

Hauritz, Lee and Bollinger could play the first of the 7 ODIs against India 2 days after playing the final of the CL T20. There were a lot more players who had perhaps a break of 3-4 days between the Champions Trophy final and their first CL T20 games.

Labels: champions league, clt20, scheduling, television, tv rights

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:16 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Weekend news: Trescothick retires, Gavaskar to be retired?

Two significant events happened over the weekend.

Marcus Trescothick announced his retirement from international cricket a week after he withdrew from Somerset's pre-season tour of the UAE due to a recurrence of the stress-related illness that caused him to pull out of the 2006 Ashes tour and the tour of India earlier that year. Given his discomfort at touring, it may be assumed that he won't sign up for the IPL.

Sunil Gavaskar is in a soup this time for sure with the ICC bosses. He had written a scathing column last week in which he referred to England and Australia as dinosaurs and defended the BCCI's stand in Australia vis-a-vis the racial remark allegations against Harbhajan.

Gavaskar keeps getting into trouble. In January, after Mike Procter pronounced a 3-test ban on Harbhajan, he was accused of (and rightly so) alleging that Procter's decision was racially biased.

Last year, Gavaskar angered Ponting following his comments on the Australian team's behaviour. In that post, I wrote:

It may not be a bad idea for Gavaskar to realize that there're genuine conflicts of interest between his duties as the chairman of the ICC's Cricket Committee and his rights as a columnist. I don't remember who, but I'm sure I've read a comment piece some time ago by a columnist/editor in (possibly) 'The Times' which talked about Gavaskar's "inability to realize a conflict of interest even when it stared at him in the face". If Gavaskar had concerns about Australia's behaviour, I'm sure there are right 'channels' to get his concerns addressed, especially since his committee 'deals with any matters or issues relating to the game or the playing of the game.' (sic)

One year later, we run into the same problem. While I'm of the opinion that the committee that he heads hasn't really achieved anything of note (umpiring standards are pathetic, player behaviour is pathetic, over rates are pathetic, usage of technology is ambiguous, cricket schedules are pathetic & crazy), I really hope he opts to stay on the committee.

He used to be a very good commentator but in the last half-decade or so, his commentary skills have dipped alarmingly. I'm fairly sure cricket production houses will also favour him remaining on the committee rather than stay on in the commentary box for the simple reason that they won't have to keep erecting a fence every time he goes on air, for that's where he is sitting all the time!

Sample this: At Perth, when Kumble announced that India would bat first, my first reaction was "Go for it, Jumbo! Great, bold decision in the context of the series!". Harsha Bhogle asked Gavaskar what he felt. Gavaskar said he'd have opted to bowl first factoring in the weather, India having 3 seamers and Australia having 2 inexperienced openers. He'd barely finished the sentence when he said that on the other hand, India had batted first and got over 600 at Leeds in 2002 on a green wicket that aided swing bowling, so batting first was a good idea too. This piece of expert commentary really sealed it for me and I've now lost respect in his abilities as a commentator.

So, for the sake of us cricket fans, Mr. Gavaskar, please stay on the committee and off the tube!

Labels: comments, conflict of interest, england, gavaskar, india, perth 2008, sydney 2008, television, trescothick

Thus spake Jagadish @ 3:19 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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The business of cricket

Last year, Forbes Global magazine had an analysis of the BCCI's $612 million deal with Nimbus.

Now, "Knowledge@Wharton", the online business journal of The Wharton School (Univ. of Pennsylvania), analyzes the business model of cricket, especially in India, especially in the wake of India's splendid show at the World Cup.

These troubles, aggravated by a nationwide sense of disappointment over the World Cup defeat, have caused many in cricket-obsessed India to ask whether the business model for the game is flawed -- and if so, how it might be fixed. According to faculty from Wharton, the Indian Institute of Management and other experts interviewed by India Knowledge@Wharton, India needs to rethink the business model for cricket. The current model needs improvement in areas such as governance as well as in the way incentives for players are structured.

It touches upon Tendulkar's $40 million deal, what players earn through endorsements, Greg Chappell's not willing to continue as coach, the structure of Indian domestic cricket, etc.

Labels: 2007 world cup, business, business model, india, television, tv rights, wharton, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:26 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Shock and horror and a format for the 2011 World Cup

It was with total amazement, shock and horror that I read the last line of this report in the BBC about the impact of India's first round exit from the World Cup.

Sony's Kunal Dasgupta now says the format of the tournament is flawed.

"In a 48-day tournament, if teams like India and Pakistan are out for playing bad cricket in two matches, there is something really wrong. We were against this format and even told the International Cricket Council to reconsider it," he said.

It's been pretty obvious for a while that television runs most things in cricket, including scheduling. It is perhaps time to congratulate the ICC for sticking to their schedule instead of kowtowing to the demands of sponsors, rights owners, etc.

There is nothing wrong with the fact that the first round has only 3 games per team. India and Pakistan are out because their opponents played better. Apparently the ICC had framed up this schedule after getting feedback from players and boards that the previous World Cup, which had two groups of six teams each, had the potential to have too many games involving minnow teams.

I'm of the opinion that weaker teams should play in the World Cup, but they should also get enough games against stronger opposition in the year leading up to the World Cup. At the same time, we ought to ensure that the World Cup isn't a tournament where around 50% of the teams have absolutely no chance of getting anywhere near the knock-out stage.

My solution, for the 2011 World Cup in the Indian sub-continent is to merge the schedule of the 2003 World Cup (Super Six stage), the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy (having a qualification round) and the current one (a round-robin in the second stage).

The top 8 from the 11 ODI playing nations don't have to go through a qualification round. The qualifiers from the ICC Trophy (only the finalists) play against the 3 ODI playing nations who didn't make it to the main draw. So that means 5 teams in the qualifier round. Play a round-robin (10 games) and the top two teams make it to the main draw.

The main draw would have a total of 10 teams, split into 2 groups of 5 teams each. They play a round-robin and the format becomes similar to the 2003 World Cup Super Six stage (six teams qualify - now 3 from each group, teams carrying over points against the other team which qualified, play against the other 4 teams which qualified etc.). Then the top 4 get to the semis and the winners of the semis play in the final. This'd mean a total of 32 games (20 in the first round, 9 in the second, 2 semi finals and 1 final). Even if we include the 10 qualifier round games, that's a total of 42 games. Compare this to the current tournament - 51 games in all, 24 of them in the first round and an equal number in the second round.

In terms of number of days the tournament would run, that'd obviously reduce too. The 2007 World Cup goes on for around 45 days. This could be significantly reduced to around a month (two first round games per day - 10 days of playing time, 9 days for the second round, 3 for the knock out games). Add in reserve days for all games and two rest days per team and we'd be looking at around 30-odd days. I don't have those details worked out though.

Labels: 2007 world cup, 2011 world cup, icc, scheduling, television, tv rights, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:21 pm | Sledge/Read 5 sledge(s)
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War minus the shooting, but plus the brickbats

There've obviously been enough references to George Orwell in various comments/articles about the disproportionate response to India and Pakistan suffering shock defeats at the World Cup. So I feel compelled to offer a different take, in the title of this post, on what he wrote about sport in 'The Sporting Spirit'.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

On my personal blog a couple of years ago, I wrote that there was far too much emphasis on sporting achievement. I still stand by that statement, despite being a fan of the game and running a blog devoted to cricket.

No-one asked those who vandalized property/burnt effigies etc. to follow the Indian team's cricketing fortunes. They did so of their own free will. That does not certainly give them the right to demolish property, public or private. The Indian team does not play well just because there're a billion-odd people hoping for a win. Those who go berserk at the team's wins or losses do so primarily because they wrongly believe it is their right to do so since they've invested so much energy/money etc. in supporting the team. In what way do they claim a right? A lot of them do so as a publicity seeking exercise. They may not even go to the stadiums, when there are opportunities to do so, to watch the games, preferring the confines of a living room.

The best way to register their protest would be to ignore/boycott watching the games on television, for that is pretty much the most important factor for international cricket now. It would initially register a barely visible dent in terms of viewership for the companies which produce/own/telecast the content. Eventually though, TRP ratings will be impacted. Then these companies would wake up and stop having headlines reading 'World Cup dream dies' or 'World Cup campaign back on track'.

Labels: 2007 world cup, india, mobs, pakistan, television, tv rights, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 9:39 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Why this could be the last World Cup in the Caribbean

I fear know that the Caribbean will not get to host any more World Cups. There is a one word reason - television. When the West Indies won the World Cup hosting rights in 1998, cricket was not the huge 'made-for-TV' spectacle that it is now. Fights for TV rights were unheard of and Kerry Packer happened two decades earlier.

It was perhaps only around the late 90s, when India began to have a consumerism boom that media magnates felt that the best way to make money out of cricket was to ensure that they had the TV rights for internationals (preferably only ODI cricket, if that was possible). The next bunch of people who realized that there was money to make from cricket telecast in India were manufacturers of consumer goods (bikes, soaps, televisions, soft drinks, etc.). The enormous power that they wielded, as a result of sinking in a lot of moolah into cricket telecasts and advertising, meant that the game transformed from being a spectator sport to being an audience sport and the emphasis firmly shifted from test cricket to one-day cricket.

As a result, games were scheduled based on ideal slots for television, rather than on the basis of what the best time to play the game was. In Australia, viewers frequently complain (or used to) that Channel 9 switched to the news or some other TV show if the day's play got extended for some reason or the other. So, Cricket Australia advanced the starting time by half an hour. I think this year's Ashes series was the first time this happened. During the 2003 World Cup, most games, including the final, were day games. Day games started at 8 am GMT while day-night games started at 1230 pm GMT. The primary reason was that day-night games would only start around 6 pm IST and end around 2 am IST the next day.

Such a schedule was clearly unacceptable to the primary sponsors of the tournament (LG, Pepsi, Hero Honda etc.) whose aim was to ensure that the huge TV audience in India (Bangladesh, Pakistan & Sri Lanka were never going to be talked of in the same breath) got to see the games during their daytime when they could pummel the audience with two ads after every over/wicket and several others during other breaks of play.

I'm sure there are several other instances of television/production houses dictating cricket schedules. The Indian cricket team does have a few chaps who can bat and bowl and play some attractive cricket. That is just one part of the reason why they play in Ireland, Holland, Malaysia and Abu Dhabi. That is also why other boards queue up to have India play on their shores more often than others.

Given that TV rights and advertising revenue accounts for a major portion of the revenues that cricket boards get from cricket, it is fairly obvious that they will do just about what is required to ensure that the major TV audience watches games at a convenient time.

This World Cup's games start at 8 pm IST and go on until around 4 am IST. This is as inconvenient a time as you can get, for Indian audiences. It is for this reason that I'm fairly sure that this will be the last World Cup that the West Indies gets to host.

Labels: 2007 world cup, india, television, tv rights, west indies, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 8:19 pm | Sledge/Read 9 sledge(s)
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