Lalit Modi's enduring legacy: IPL, and cricket’s changing economy

Indian Premier League (IPL) founder Lalit Modi at a sports management conference in London, United Kingdom, in 2010. (Image: Action Images/Jed Leicester via Reuters)

Earlier this week, media rights for the 2023-27 cycle of the Indian Premier league (IPL) – television and digital rights combined – were sold at an astounding Rs 48,390 crore, nearly triple what the Board of Control for Cricket in India  (BCCI) got for them in the 2018-22 cycle. The five seasons will amount to 370 matches, which means the BCCI will earn INR 49.6 lakh per ball – and that is just from broadcasting.

One can see why channels pay such exorbitant amounts to cover the IPL. A league-stage clash (not a playoffs match) between the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings in 2021 was watched by 367 million. The 2019 World Cup final – the most high-profile international match – attracted a mere 167 million, while the Boxing Day Test match of the 2021/22 Ashes was watched by a mere 440,000. The numbers seem even more astounding if one considers the durations of the three matches.

The figures demonstrate the gargantuan size of the Indian cricket fanbase. Despite the rise of other sports and corresponding leagues, the second-most populated country in the world remains largely devoted to one sport.

While many had acknowledged this, the first person to understand its enormity and to make significant attempts to profit from it was Lalit Modi. The story usually begins with 2008, the first edition of the IPL, but it should not, for the IPL had been conceived in the mid-1990s.

Having seen the NBA in the USA, Modi wanted a similar cricket league in India, with city-based, privately owned teams, matches played under floodlights, live telecast for four to six weeks a year. Of course, this would have been 50-over cricket, for Twenty20 had not been invented yet.

His reasoning was simple. While satellite television had been spreading, it was still restricted to cities. Naming teams after cities would make them more relatable. Since there was no other sport popular enough to fight with, cricket’s competition would be soap operas. For that, cricket needed to be packaged as entertainment.

The BCCI turned it down. The projected revenue figures were too high to be realistic, they thought. While they knew there was money to be made, they had underestimated the volume. Neither did they want to ‘sell’ cricket to private organisations (though they were fine with sharing profit).

The idea was shelved until 2007, when Subhash Chandra launched the Indian Cricket League (ICL), based on the same concept but in 20-over format. The BCCI responded by banning every Indian player who featured in the ICL, effectively barring the Tendulkars and Gangulys and Dravids and Sehwags and Dhonis and Yuvrajs and Kumbles and Zaheers.

Soon afterwards, they launched the IPL.

By now Lalit Modi was in charge. His vision had finally come to life. Twenty20, the new three-hour format, was barely longer than most Bollywood movies, fitting beautifully into the concept of selling cricket as an entertainment package. And since there would be a different match every night, it would not matter if anyone missed one episode of the two-month soap opera.

The organisations understood the magnitude of what was in store. And the bidding began. Cricket changed forever, perhaps irreversibly.

India had toured Australia months before the first IPL season, in 2008. The tour featured much acrimony, with Andrew Symonds accusing Harbhajan Singh of racist comments. After match referee Mike Procter banned Harbhajan, the BCCI threatened to pull out of the tour. Add to that the umpiring controversies, and it was a wonder that the tour was played out peacefully in the end.

However, none of that mattered at the auctions that took place back home while the Indians were still in Australia. At USD 1.35 million, Symonds became the most expensive overseas cricketer. The IPL, and the unprecedented sums associated it, helped remove all animosity, as cricketers from around the world featured in the tournament.

While India knew they could call the shots in the cricket fraternity. Over time that influence would grow even more.

At this stage, however, the IPL failed to impress English cricketers. It clashed with the English summer, and the English (and West Indian) cricketers had already been lured by American billionaire Allen Stanford’s Super Series.

The second reason took a hit in early 2009, when Stanford was arrested for fraud (he would later be sentenced to 110 years in prison). As Lalit Modi reached out, the England and Wales Cricket Board agreed to release their cricketers for a 21-day period. At USD 1.55 million, that season’s most expensive cricketers – Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff – were both English.

Soon after the IPL, the West Indian cricketers went into pay dispute with their board. The entire team boycotted the home series against Bangladesh, forcing their board to field a substitute XI. Several disputes would follow.

Over time, big names like Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo would make it clear that would rather play in the IPL and similar franchise-based leagues than play Tests or ODIs for the West Indies. This would soon become a pattern around the globe. BCCI’s domination of the economy of cricket – and hence, the sport – has been near-absolute.

As the IPL has gone from strength to strength, the BCCI continues to dominate cricket off the field – to the extent that the ICC does not float tenders for its media rights until someone acquires the IPL bids.

To ensure no one else gets a slice of the cake (which, in this case, is top Indian cricket stars in action), the BCCI prevents Indian cricketers from playing in overseas T20 leagues before retirement. Their demand for a separate window for the IPL in the cricket calendar has been an oft-debated topic.

But what about the changes on the field?

Of course, there is the money, even life-changing amounts for some. However, even beyond that, there are obvious cricketing changes. Youngsters, even the uncapped teenagers, can now rub shoulders with the best cricketers and high-profile coaches, both Indian and overseas. IPL success catapults hitherto obscure cricketers into instant superstardom, even increases the probability of them earning national caps.

Not as obvious is the structural change the IPL has brought about in Indian cricket. For decades, an Indian cricketer typically had to follow a geopolitical hierarchy, from club to state to zone to the national side. And if the side they played for was not big enough to grab the attention of the national selectors, they stood little chance. Thus, unless they shifted base, the future of an Indian cricketer often used to be determined at birth.

M.S. Dhoni was spotted by BCCI's Talent Resource Development Wing scouts. (Image: @CSKFansOfficial/Twitter)

The first change to this came in 2002, when the BCCI launched the Talent Resource Development Wing (TRDW) to tap talent outside the traditional cricket powerhouses. The TRDW scouts spotted M.S. Dhoni soon afterwards, followed by Irfan Pathan, Suresh Raina, R.P. Singh, Piyush Chawla, and S. Sreesanth.

The eight (now ten) IPL teams have subsequently increased the extent of scouting manifold. IPL stars have come from the most unexpected corners. Rajasthan Royals, for example, is now led by Kerala’s Sanju Samson and features Assam’s Riyan Parag. It would have taken them years to play such high-profile cricket before the IPL.

The IPL teams are often fed by the state-level T20 leagues. Varun Chakravarthy, for example, went from the Tamil Nadu Premier League to the IPL to the Indian side, thereby changing the decades-old geopolitical hierarchy of Indian cricket. Before him, 41-year-old Pravin Tambe was picked straight from Mumbai club cricket to play in the IPL.

They are not the only ones. The next cricketing superstar can now come from anywhere. The IPL is, thus, unlike anything Indian cricket has seen, whether on or off the field.