IOC Session: Cricket, Olympics & a billion aspirations

The announcement of the inclusion of Cricket in the Olympics happened in the presence of India’s IOC representative Mrs Nita Ambani

If cricket is all about timing, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has just come up with the most exquisitely timed shot to drive the modern-day version of the game forward.

Cricket has officially been included in the Olympics starting with the 2028 Los Angeles edition and the global governing body chose the occasion of the 141st session of the IOC in Mumbai, India, to announce the development.

It happened in the presence of India’s IOC representative Mrs Nita Ambani, who has been associated with multiple sports in the country at various levels – from grassroots to the top – and has been a pioneer in driving forward a billion aspirations.

“As an IOC member, a proud Indian and an ardent cricket fan, I am delighted that IOC members have voted to include cricket as an Olympic sport in the LA Summer Olympics 2028. For 1.4 billion Indians, cricket is not just a sport, it’s a religion, Mrs Ambani said.

From a federation standpoint, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), headed by its secretary Jay Shah – who has been equally supportive of the idea that cricket must rise up to the Olympic challenge – had been working on the initiative for a while now.

Also read: PM Modi inaugurates IOC Session in Mumbai, says India is eager to host 2036 Olympics

Cricket happens to be the second-most addressable sport on television around the world, after football and the cricket world cup has been identified as the third most popularly watched sports event anywhere in the world – the others being Tour de France, the FIFA World Cup, Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics.

In terms of the sheer numbers that cricket produces, no single country contributes more emphatically to any sport anywhere around the world as India does to cricket.

An example: When the International Cricket Council (ICC) last decided to sell its media rights, it first chose to sell the India market separately and earned $3.04 billion (approximately Rs 24000 crore) from the sale.

After that, the ICC struggled to sell the media rights of any other market anywhere around the world like it did in India, thus underlining that India alone was responsible for generating 90 percent-plus revenues for the game globally.

Therefore, without BCCI’s support, neither the ICC nor any of its members anywhere around the world could have made the inclusion (cricket at the Olympics) happen.

“The inclusion of cricket in the Olympics will create deeper engagement for the Olympic movement in newer geographies and at the same time, provide a boost to cricket’s growing international popularity,” Mrs Ambani added.

Some day in the future – and industry executives say the day is not too far – India aspires to host the Summer Olympics. In the run-up, India may well want to host the Youth Olympics too possibly in 2028 or 2029, more importantly as a precursor to the main event.

While cricket may remain relatively irrelevant from the 2028 LA perspective, given America’s understanding of the sport and the time zone close to 12 hours behind India prime time, the inclusion may turn out to be beneficial considering the 2032 Olympics will be held in Brisbane (with Australia being a cricketing nation) followed by the possibility of the next two Olympics being held in Asia (and the further possibility of India hosting it either in 2036 or 2040).

Until then, the BCCI has to work on the intricacies surrounding the format that will be in play at the Olympics and the countries that will participate, based on which the IOC will look at selling the media rights of the event.

While that’s a long way to go, what augurs well for cricket and India is that a sport and a country that show a potent mix like no other single sport-country combination.

Movies, perhaps, were India’s greatest export to the world pre-turn of the century. Post turn of the century, that mantle gradually got taken over by cricket.

Among other things, cricket also happens to be one of India’s biggest soft powers and is often used as a catalyst by the country’s top leaders, especially the Prime Minister, in initiating any kind of bilateral engagement with other nations.

For instance, the two leaders invoking cricket as a discussion during the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to the United States, the UK Prime Minister often finding himself in banter with his Australian counterpart, so on and so forth.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Mumbai to inaugurate the IOC session and cricket remaining the biggest talking point over the weekend – on a day when India was working on beating Pakistan in Ahmedabad – are instances of how the game connects across the length and breadth of this country like nothing else.

It is perhaps this catalyst that will once again help India strive further in its efforts to gain a bigger global footprint. The journey seems to have only begun.