Over The Top

Major sports properties anywhere in the world are not a function of charity or CSR activity. These are commercial entities, and the IPL has emerged as amongst the most valued and financially robust in the world.

Despite a slew of controversies over the years, some of them serious enough to have got the apex court of the land involved, the IPL has grown by leaps and bounds, confounding critics and skeptics, instead inviting scholarly research to understand study its success.

Fundamentally, the strength of the IPL brand is identified from the money it can command, but essentially stems from its appeal with fans and the cricketing fraternity that has grown exponentially to now include those even from all cricket- playing countries.

This is no classical chicken and egg situation here. If fans weren’t to run into several million — more than a billion some would argue justifiably — there would no queue of sponsors, and media rights would be a fraction of what they have fetched and players from all countries wouldn’t be clamouring to play in it.

This is what has helped the IPL withstand many problems and controversies. For instance, this year the league lost four major overseas players in Steve Smith, David Warner, Mitchel Starc and Kagiso Rabada ( for different reasons), but this doesn’t seem to have made any dent to the sense of anticipation.

True, the teams that had bought these players will have to suffer, but fans seem to have taken this in