Who owns cricket in India? That is a difficult question. Legally, only the BCCI can put out a cricket team that purports to represent India. So who owns the BCCI, and who is it accountable to?
The BCCI is not owned by the government, and so is not accountable to taxpayers. The BCCI is not a public limited company, and so is not accountable to shareholders. The BCCI is, effectively, controlled by the regional cricket associations, whose interests are entirely different from that of the cricket fan or cricket player, and which are similarly accountable to no one.
So if the BCCI is not accountable to us, is there any way by which we can make them get their act together? My answer to that is an emphatic “Yes”.
You see, sporting bodies throughout the world have a similar effective monopoly over the sport, and enjoy a similar absence of direct accountability. What keeps them efficient then? Competition does. In most other countries, cricket is not the only popular sport. If English cricket is mismanaged, and the team starts to decline, the fans will watch more soccer. In Australia, they’ll watch more Aussie rules football. Or rubgy league. Or hockey. And when they do that, the cricket board makes less money. Eventually, if the board doesn’t get its act together, the fans will turn away completely. Because that possibility exists, we see that the cricket boards in those countries are actually quite efficient.
In India, though, there is virtually no competition to cricket. It is the only sport that people watch in large enough numbers for it to matter commercially. The BCCI knows that regardless of how well it runs the game, millions of people will still tune in to watch India play. Who is responsible for giving them that sense of complacency? You and I.
Why do we spend our time—and remember that time is money—on watching hours and hours of unsatisfying cricket? How many of us complaining about India’s performance in the World Cup will switch their TV sets on when India play their next series? Do we not need to get a life, and watch something else? The only way we can hold cricket administrators and players to task is by voting with our eyeballs. Nothing else will work. Only commerce matters to our administrators, and the money in cricket comes because we watch the game.
So the next time India disappoints you in a cricket match, don’t whine, because the power to make a difference is in your hands. It’s the remote control.
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