When Lalit Modi launched the Indian Premier League (IPL) to counter Subhash Chandra’s ICL (Indian Cricket League), purists where shocked by the cheerleaders’ titillating gyrations, while sceptics scoffed at IPL’s revenue model. Weeks later, Modi and the IPL franchisees laughed all the way to the bank, while critics fell into numbing silence.
In Season 2, terror and politics sought to scuttle the event. Unfazed, Modi took IPL to South Africa. Despite the change of venue, cash registers rang merrily. While Terror and Thackeray seek to play spoilsport in Season 3, an unruffled Modi seeks to take the show to American shores.
What accounts for IPL’s astounding success? Much of it can be credited to the business acumen of maverick Modi, who turned traditional revenue models on their head, even YouTube-ing IPL. Cricket could likely enter the Olympics in 2020. Has IPL-2020 achieved the seemingly impossible?
As former Hollywood star Clint Eastwood may have drawled: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet pardner!” This brings us to IPL’s high glamour and Bollywood quotient. Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty are Bollywood stars with stakes in IPL teams, while India Inc. is represented by Mukesh Ambani, Vijay Mallya and Ness Wadia, among others. Although the IPL jamboree may run for 44-odd days, the buzz lasts 365 days of the year. How come? IPL’s greed-cum-instant gratification traction and Modi’s domineering ways are lightning rods for controversies. Remember Osho? Hated by some; ignored by none. Ditto for Modi and IPL! With controversies galore, newsmen will always beat a path to IPL’s portals. Whether it’s cricket or controversies, just dial IPL.
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