The Sports growth story and sporting fever has gripped the Indian subcontinent thoroughly, especially over the last 2 years. The viewership of sporting events rose by leaps and bounds beyond cricket in both Olympic and non-Olympic sports. Though Cricket is still in the lead overall, interest in other sports rose tremendously. To name a few: kabaddi, hockey, track & field competitions like javelin and other sports like shooting, archery, wrestling, and others.
This has increased interest among corporate / private sectors / parties to support these games too. Unfortunately, we are still fighting hard to break away from a *“STAR HUNGRY nation in Sports” to “SPORTS HUNGRY nation beyond Cricket”* to ensure creating an even ground for all sports in the likes of Cricket.
The easiest way evident over the recent past for supporting sports is by creation of a League tournament: not just from the point of only supporting the game but also to earn money by commercialising it through various evident means.
A few recent examples and whispers heard like – Rugby Premiere League, Hockey League, Ultimate Table Tennis League, few Masters leagues in cricket, Pro-Punja League, TNPL, KPL, APL, UP Cricket League & Delhi Cricket League. The list isn’t limited just to these names but every passing day one new name(s) are coming up.
*Reason Behind the Idea of Starting a Sports League:*
1) Easier to mint money and reach break-even faster by owning a league than owning just a team in any league.
2) Support by respective sports federations thinking this will benefit all athletes and officials attached to the game and deprived of facilities and financial support so far.
3) This will also prove to be another IPL in making i.e. all leagues are currently wannabee IPLs..
4) Strategy to woo foreign boards in the same sports by attracting offshore talents.
5) Assumed there will big financial inflows from corporates & sponsors which can build the sporting infrastructure of that game better than ever.
6) Increase in talent pipeline.
7) Better performance of Indian athletes at the international level fo competition of that sport, such as Olympics or World Cup.
8) Creating few STARS and BRANDS / BRAND Ambassadors like Sachin / Dhoni / Virat / Neeraj Chopra / Manu Bhaker / Vinesh Phogat etc
9) Association / League to command respect and power what IPL has currently in whole cricketing fraternity / diaspora.
10) Creation of value and return on commercial investment for all sponsors.
*The Mistakes they are making and reasons for LEAGUE FLOPS:*
1) They forget the fact that IPL hasn’t turned into IPL in ONE DAY: It was backed by corporate giants like the Ambanis / GMR / Sree Cement / UB Group etc for over 10 complete years in a pathetic economic condition of financial hemorrhage. Losses ran over multi-million dollars between 2008 to 2018. One franchisee (Deccan Charger) died in between and was supported back for getting a new name / patronage. Another few were forced to do multiple or single stake sales. Despite the fact that it was backed by terrific sponsor brand names – DLF, VIVO, TATA, the IPL was struggling hard to preserve its existence until the blockbuster central deal from STAR in season 2019.
2) The calculation for the cost of media production and stadium operation is always UNDERESTIMATED or done so for good optics to woo team buyers / owners.
3) Any league sustains on ONLY 3 support pillars of revenues- money raised through sale of teams, through sale of media rights and through central sponsorship. All other revenue streams are miniscule and not worth discussing as a contributor to overall profitability and sustainability.
4) The league like IPL will be back in cash crunch if the rates of central sponsorship & media rights fall considerably (for any unforeseen reasons) from where it is currently, as rest of the revenue streams are NOT even good enough to cover player and travel & logistics costs beyond match operations cost if not managed centrally.
5) The leagues make the mistake of wooing the team buyers first before wooing the broadcasters and digital media rights by explaining the game format and without proper analysis of *excitement potential & ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT* of the game.
6) The league is NOT all about putting up a show, which lasts for less time than it takes to reach the stadium in moderate traffic in any metros or B-Class cities.
7) The cricketing leagues other than the IPL are still either struggling to break-even or running under a moderate profit enough ONLY to cater operational expenses.
*Hence the question arises – Why this “LEAGUE MANIA” and a rush for league startups or sporting leagues??*
Vikash Kumar is the Head Of Operations, Logistics & HR at GMR Sports. GMR owns the Delhi Capitals, Dubai Capitals and several other teams in multiple sports.
