Cash Before Cricket: Monetising frenzy, the spirit of the game be damned

Overall, Indian fans spent 422 billion minutes watching the matches, making this the biggest World Cup ever

Deliberating upon the idea of sportsmanship is tricky when a sport is positioned as a consumer product, and the spectator is the customer sustaining the business. Weighing on the spectators’ conduct in such a scenario, and expecting it to abide by the values of sportsmanship is even more puzzling when the entire business is premised on whipping up their emotions, and monetising the heat thus generated.

No prizes for guessing that it’s cricket that’s being discussed here, particularly the just-concluded ICC Men’s World Cup 2023. The tournament is being touted as the greatest, read most profitable, global cricket event ever. And it’s entirely the fervour of the Indian cricket fans, who thronged to the stadiums or remained glued to their screens to cheer for their favourite team, that made this stunning success possible.

While the commercial success of the game has come riding this consumer frenzy, it is ironic that it is also being decried for hurting the spirit of sportsmanship that demands grace and equanimity even in the face of an undesirable outcome.

Frenzy = Dollars

Cricket in India is not simply a socio-cultural phenomenon. It has become a commercial enterprise generating billions of dollars that all its stakeholders gleefully partake in.

Consider this: Disney Star, the Indian broadcasting and streaming service owned by Walt Disney, reportedly paid ICC more than $3 billion for the India rights of its matches for four years ending 2027. It had paid $2.02 billion for the same matches played between 2015 and 2023. In proportionate terms, Disney Star is paying ICC three times more per match for the current season vis-à-vis the previous one. It is estimated that India rights account for a little less than 40 percent of ICC’s total income, which is distributed among its 106 member countries. Incidentally, the share in ICC’s spoils is a big source of sustenance for several of these members.

In comparison to the $3-billion India rights, the ICC’s media rights in the UK and Ireland were sold for around $260 million and that, too, for eight years starting 2024. Willow TV, which bought the media rights for the US and Canada, is supposed to have paid even less.

Why would an Indian broadcaster, whose financial heft ranks below its global counterparts in markets such as the UK, Australia, and the US, pay such a disproportionately high sum? It’s because the opportunity to monetise these rights is much larger in India. Exclusive cricket rights guarantee massive and sticky audiences cutting across all socio-economic demographics including age, gender, region, and religion, which, in turn, brings in deep-pocketed advertisers in hot pursuit of opportunities that allow access to mass audiences in a diverse and hugely segmented market like India.

Cricket matches in which India is playing are so coveted that advertisers pay astonishingly high prices for a few seconds of consumer attention. The 10-second ad spots in the India and Australia final, for instance, were bought for around Rs 30-35 lakh,  while for the rest of the matches, ad rates hovered between Rs 10 lakh and 20 lakh.

As for the number of consumers these advertisers managed to reach, according to Disney Star, more than 300 million viewers tuned in to watch the final, making it a record in the history of Indian television, while its streaming platform, too, witnessed an unprecedented peak concurrent viewership of 59 million. Overall, Indian fans spent 422 billion minutes watching the matches, making this the biggest World Cup ever.

Surpassing its expectations, the broadcast company is expected to have generated around Rs 3,000 crore in advertising revenue, thus, recouping a significant amount of its investment right at the beginning of the eight year cycle.

Spectators Matter

Expectedly, gate receipts, too, have been reported to be very impressive. According to ICC, World Cup 2023 broke all records, with more than 1.25 million fans buying tickets to watch their favourite players slog it out on the field. In comparison, the last World Cup played in England and Wales in 2019 had seen 7,52,000 fans pass through the turnstiles.

Income and profit shouldn't be the goals the game of cricket is built around. The sport should, ideally, symbolise the principle of striving, and promote values such as fairness and grace among all its stakeholders, spectators included.

But when commercial interests take precedence over the spirit of the game, and all other stakeholders are party to it, expecting spectators to remain neutral is incongruous.

Commercial success and a neutral audience are incompatible goals unless a deliberate effort is made to enmesh the two in the product. On the face of it, the stakeholders have no incentive to invest in the idea.

Archna Shukla is a senior journalist based in Delhi. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.