Former Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi said the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has done a fantastic job with the league, taking the games to newer cities and markets to cover the entire country open for the tournament. While speaking to Backstage with Boria on Revsportz, “The IPL has emerged as the best sporting league in the world and has an unparalleled rating, and you have to say that the BCCI has done a fantastic job with it. The new group in the BCCI that the show now running is right. They have brought games to newer cities and markets and opened up the entire country to the IPL.”
“That way you bring newer people into the tournament and it’s great to see them doing that. When I sit here in Austria and see fans from all over the country getting behind the tournament, I have to say: I’m very happy and a lot credit goes to the BCCI for taking the tournament forward and making it bigger and better,” he added.
However, Lalit pointed out that more innovation is needed on the part of team owners in terms of merchandising as this has not really taken off yet. He said there should be a centralized IPL narrative and ticketing is something that can be improved.
“Innovation not so much from the BCCI, but more from the team owners. Now most teams have a strong fan base. And yet merchandising hasn’t really taken off yet. I would like to see the team owners come together and work on merchandising. is a missed opportunity. They need to open a centralized IPL store and take the story further. Even ticketing is something where the team owners can improve. Instead of doing their own things, they need to do things collectively.”
“For the BCCI, maybe now they should think about a secondary league in tier two or tier three cities. That’s where the appetite is, and that’s where you need to take the tournament. Use the September-October window earmarked for the champions League for this. Maybe even think about whether the winner can get promoted to the IPL next season. That’s where the BCCI can go with the tournament in the coming years,” he added.
Lalit said BCCI deserves credit for expanding the tournament and taking it to cities that were “earlier untapped”.
“This is how you expand your fan base. Many people talk about Manchester United or Liverpool and Real Madrid. In our country we have still not realized more than 10 percent of the fan potential. With a population of 1.45 billion, you can safely say that Manchester United, for example, can never come close to Mumbai Indians. Each of these teams will be the biggest sporting club in the world and that is where the IPL is the biggest success story,” he added.
He also said that it has become an “ambitious story” for the Indian players.
“The second point I want to talk about is the success of the Indian players. It has successfully become an aspirational story, something it was always intended to be. In a team with Faf (Du Plessis) and (Glenn) Maxwell, it is it was Anuj Rawat who did the job for RCB. Just think what it could have done for him. In a team with Mitchell Starc, it was Harshit Rana who did the job for KKR. That’s where the tournament is a big success. no longer dependent of foreign stars,” said Lalit.
“Rather, it is the Indian core that drives it. The reason the South African League (SA20) was successful this year is because the local stars power it. The same goes for the Caribbean League. CPL is now a success. The reason Dubai and the US are not successes is because they depend on outsiders. You need the local connection to grow a tournament. Without that connection you will always struggle,” he added.
Speaking about the ICC T20 World Cup in West Indies/USA this year and inclusion in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, he said the T20 World Cup in New York will be controlled by expats. However, he is skeptical about the inclusion of cricket in the Los Angeles Olympics and instead believes that it would have been better to have done so when serious cricket-playing countries such as Australia and England hosted the event.
“I think the World T-20 in New York will be controlled by expats. For a one-off match that is fine. In the US it is still the expats who control the sport. In the absence of local connections, although I think that the match between India and Pakistan will be a huge spectacle and have a huge appeal with expats from all over the world, I am seriously skeptical about the inclusion of cricket in LA.
For example, if it had been shot in Australia or England when the Olympics were taking place in those countries, I’d say it was a great move. But when I think that cricket will make its debut in LA, where there is no real local connection, I become skeptical. We have to wait and see what happens, but at first glance I am skeptical,” he concludes.
Topics mentioned in this article