From stalwarts of Indian cricket like Kapil Dev making Rs 1500 in match fees at the time of the 1983 ICC World Cup to modern-day icons like Virat Kohli receiving Rs 6 lakh per ODI along with an annual 7 crore contract, both the Indian cricket and cricketers have come a long way from their first World Cup win.
While it may be hard for many Gen Z cricket fans to imagine today, there was a time when being an Indian cricketer did not necessarily equate to having a lavish life. During that period, which stretched roughly from Indian Independence to the late 1980s, even the board which was responsible for giving out paychecks to Indian cricketers did not have much wealth to its name.
While BCCI’s (Board of Control for Cricket in India) financial prowess as the richest cricketing board in the world is well known by cricketing fans today, the board’s turbulent journey towards reaching that milestone, which was originally kick-started by a South African test batter, remains less popular.
BCCI was established in 1928 as an autonomous body to govern Indian cricket. Unlike its foreign counterparts, like the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) or Cricket Australia (CA), the Indian board’s initial days were marked with financial insecurity.
BCCI’s financial troubles were borne of the fact that up until the early 1990s, the board’s income was strictly limited to the sale of match tickets and on-field advertisements. It simply had not occurred to the cricketing board that they could earn revenue from the live coverage of cricket matches in India till they received such an offer from South Africa’s tour manager and former male Test captain, Dr Ali Bacher, in 1991.
Up until that point, all Indian matches had been covered exclusively by Doordarshan, which held exclusive rights to telecast all matches played on Indian soil as per the 1985 Telecom Act. This act gave Doorsharn rights to revenue earned from these matches. Hence, when BCCI was offered money by the Proteas manager to stream the tournament in South Africa, it had taken both the board and Doordarshan by surprise.
The Indian cricket board was offered $40,000 per match for a 3-day series in 1991, four times the amount the BCCI originally had in mind. This one transaction led to a snowballing effect on the earnings of BCCI, as the board had just realised the monetary potential of cricket in India
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Following this development, BCCI sold the screening rights of India’s next home series against England in 93 to Trans World International (TWI), and made $600,000 from the deal. This came as a big jolt to Doordarshan, which had to pay TWI $1 million to telecast the matches in India.
Upset about having to pay to broadcast matches in India and being outbid by international bodies to cover games, Doordarshan invoked its authoritarian power, backed by government support, to regain exclusive telecasting rights.
A couple of days before the 1993 Hero Cup, the IT ministry invoked the 1885 Indian Telegraph Act, which made the Indian government agencies the only ones authorised to “telecast any event live by uplinking signals from Indian soil”, barring TWI from covering the coveted event.
Following this, the dispute between government bodies and TWI escalated quickly, as Doorsarshan refused to pay the international media body even a single rupee to acquire their footage. Things did not stop at that. The customs departments at Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta airports seized TWI equipment. It took a Supreme Court order to get these released.
Despite the dispute taking place on Indian soil, it affected the cricketing community worldwide, as fans from all the countries participating in the Hero Cup were unable to watch the tournament on their televisions due to ongoing legal battles.
The legal battle finally concluded in February 1995, when Justices PB Sawant, BP Jeevan Reddy, and S Mohan issued a landmark judgement that turned the future of Indian cricket on its head.
The apex court stated that “the airwaves or frequencies” used to telecast games are “public property” and should remain as such barring Doordarshan from exercising exclusive control.
Following the landmark judgement, BCCI launched a fierce money-making campaign and has not looked back since. For the 1996 World Cup, WorldTel (media body) had guaranteed the Pakistan-India-Sri Lanka Organising Committee (PILCOM) $1.4 million.
Then came the watershed movement of T20 cricket. In 2008, BCCI launched the Indian Premier League (IPL) in India with eight teams featuring big sponsors, celebrity endorsements and some of the biggest cricketing names at the time like Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar.
The launch catapulted BCCI to unprecedented financial heights for any sports-related entity in India. The T20 tournament’s valuation stood at $10.7 billion in 2023, marking a 433% rise in IPL’s brand value since its inception in 2008.
The broadcast value of the IPL paints an even more impressive picture with each match contributing $14.2 million, or around ₹118.5 crore. The scale of rights deals, sponsorships and viewing figures positions the IPL among the most commercially valuable sports leagues globally.
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