Indian Premier League a product of excellent timing

The popularity of Twenty20, the rise of Lalit Modi, India’s victory in inaugural 20-over World Cup and the start of rival series led IPL to finally kick off in 2008, writes Osman Samiuddin.

Fireworks explode after the 2009 DLF IPL Twenty20 final match during a ceremony at The Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg on May 24, 2009. Deccan Chargers beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by six runs. Show more

Until the Indian Premier League (IPL) took off, Lalit Modi’s track record in setting up businesses was not sparkling.

In 1993, four years after he returned from the United States with a handy trust fund from the family business, Modi set up Modi Entertainment Networks (MEN).

The timing was not bad. Modi was attempting to ride on the crest of the satellite and cable TV revolution in India at the time.

MEN was a joint venture with Walt Disney Pictures to distribute Disney content within India and, within a year, MEN had signed a 10-year deal worth US$975 million (Dh3.58 billion) with ESPN to distribute their content across India.

Those deals would eventually fall through with Modi’s alleged unscrupulousness the cause.

The failure of an intercity cricket league he proposed at the time was one of several ventures that did not take flight.

At the beginning of the 2000s his fortunes turned when he broke through into cricket administration. He had a short-lived stint as a member of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association before joining the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA).

At the RCA – with the help of some political backing – he rose to prominence and was elected president in 2004.

It was that post that got him into the BCCI. In a fierce and bitter BCCI election in 2005, Modi helped Sharad Pawar become BCCI president and was rewarded with the job of vice president.

Importantly, he gained control over the vital finance and commercial functions of the board.

He had made it to the inside and his plans for an intercity league lived again.

The problem was that the BCCI did not seem ready for Twenty20 cricket. The administration that had brought in Modi had expressed a clear, puritan distaste for the format from the start.

England, Pakistan, South Africa and Australia jumped headlong into the format by organising financially successful domestic Twenty20 tournaments soon after it was created in 2003. India resisted until as late as 2007.

When they did organise an interstate Twenty20 tournament, it was done hurriedly. The BCCI had a gap in their schedule after India were knocked out of the 50-over World Cup early and the tournament began even as the World Cup was still on.

Despite the presence of their major stars, it was not even broadcast. It seems inconceivable now but because it was shoehorned into the calendar, the BCCI had not even sold TV rights for it.

Part of the reason for holding the tournament was the inaugural World Twenty20 in September 2007. The BCCI had agreed to take part, but only after it and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had initially indicated they would not.

One tale goes that it was only after the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) then chief executive, Malcolm Speed, warned both boards that the tournament would go ahead with or without them (and they were awarded the right to jointly co-host the 2011 World Cup) that they decided to take part.

India’s unexpected win in the final – ironically over the other reluctant participant, Pakistan – capped an enthralling campaign. It ran almost perfectly as a promotion for the IPL, dotted with images and memories that would not seem out of place in the league: Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes, Sreesanth’s madcap celebrations in the high-octane clash with Australia.

Presiding over it all was MS Dhoni, new and fresh and cool like he was a young cricketing Marlon Brando.

Dhoni, more than anyone, would come to represent something intrinsic about the IPL.

That win lit the fuse on Modi’s plans. India were world champions in the format; in Dhoni they had the face for a new generation. Two days into the World Twenty20, the BCCI officially announced the launch of the IPL.

Yet even then the BCCI was so lumbering that it was beaten to a private domestic Twenty20 league. Zee TV, a vast television network owned by a leading business house, the Essel Group, had already announced in April 2007 that it was setting up the Indian Cricket League (ICL), which would mix domestic players with leading foreign ones.

That league was set up by Subhash Chandra Goel, Essel’s head, allegedly in response to having been denied TV rights to Indian cricket by the BCCI despite having put in the highest bid. The BCCI refused to recognise the ICL and pushed boards around the world to punish their players who took part in it. It also denied the league use of the country’s major cricket grounds.

Despite all this, the ICL went ahead with its first season in November 2007. It was the start of that which finally tipped the IPL from idea to reality, though the BCCI denied it had anything to do with it.

“Modi wanted to start an intercity league in the 1990s,” Ratnakar Shetty, a senior BCCI official, said. “The idea was always there at the back of his mind. We have not plucked it out of thin air one fine morning.”

Whatever the reasons, the BCCI, finally, belatedly, was forced to act and Modi’s legendary relentless ambition took over.

During that year’s Wimbledon, he met senior IMG official Andrew Wildblood and the pair hammered out a plan of how the league would be structured, including the idea of city-based private ownership franchises.

The BCCI hired a direct marketing firm and sent its plans to 1,200 companies. By January 2008, 90 Indian companies picked up the franchise offer documents.

By the end of the month a collection of India’s biggest business giants and Bollywood stars gathered at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium as the winning tender bids were announced.

For all the interest, only 10 of the bids were deemed valid but, combined, the eight city franchises sold for US$724m.

Within the next month, Modi brought the IPL to life. With the promise of untold, untapped riches from India’s economy, he signed up 100 of the world’s best cricketers.

Title sponsors and a massive TV rights deal were signed and he staged an auction where the players were bought by the franchises.

By April 18, as Brendon McCullum set the script with a 73-ball 158, the IPL was born, to fireworks. From announcement to execution, it had taken seven months, a truly fitting Twenty20 denouement to an idea that had developed at Test-match pace for more than a decade.

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