HOWZZAT!
A nation of over 1.1 billion plus people lives & breathes by the game of cricket. Does such an immaculately revered game deserve to be monopolised by BCCI? It’s been quite a wait... but times are a changing!

For seventy five years, the Board of Cricket Control of India has enjoyed a monopoly & milked billions of rupees from cricket. Like all monopolies in the world, it is resorting to every trick in the book to ensure that the new rival Indian Cricket league doesn’t grab market share & profits from it. And like most other monopolies, BCCI might already be fighting a losing battle

Monopolies are a peculiar breed. They are oft en seized with narcissistic tendencies that border on schizophrenia. They love the power that they wield and usually go to any length to preempt even the very hint of competition. They swagger like macho husbands flaunting trophy wives. And oft en like macho husbands who turn out to be cuckolds, they are the last to know about the indiscretions of their spouse. Some times, it is government regulators who do the job. At other times, those are competitors who shatter the complacence of monopolies. In recent corporate history, the monopoly of the American telecom giant AT&T was torn asunder by regulators & split into seven independent companies. Then again, as an instance of the latter, it’s internet upstart Google that now threatens to destroy the two-decade old dominance enjoyed by Microsoft

Cricket lovers need not necessarily be economists or corporate analysts. Yet, even they would be aware of the existential crisis confronting one of the longest surviving monopolies in corporate India – the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI). Did someone raise an eyebrow at BCCI and corporate India being mentioned in the same breath? The skeptics can hold their horses. For the financial year 2006-07, BCCI declared a net profit of Rs.2.32 billion. That’s more than the net profits declared by companies like Aditya Birla Nuvo, Raymond, Biocon, Colgate Palmolive, Moser Baer and Brittania Industries, to name just a few. In effect, the Union Food & Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar (who also heads the BCCI) seems to be a sharper entrepreneur than Kumarmangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Nuvo), Kiran Majumdar Shaw (Biocon), Nusli Wadia (Brittania) & Vijay pat Singhania (Raymond). flanking attack Until former friend Subhash Chandra of Zee Network decided to invade and break the monopoly enjoyed by BCCI over the game of cricket, Sharad Pawar and his successor CEOs would have slept easy, certain that net profits and perks would continue their ascendant in a country obsessed with cricket. But now that Chandra has launched a rival Indian Cricket League (ICL), all hell seems to have broken loose. Like all monopolies, BCCI has reacted in characteristic fashion – threatening all and sundry with exile and worse if they join hands with ICL. Corporate analysts cannot help recalling the now notorious outburst from Microsoft , CEO, Steve Ballmer, when Google started threatening the empire created by Bill Gates (reportedly said to a top engineer who was defecting to Google), “I will f***ing kill Google.” BCCI managers may not have used such colourful language in public; but who knows what words they used in private?

Clearly, India Inc. can get ready to witness a bare knuckled and ruthless corporate battle in the days ahead; a battle that could rival the animosity between Dhirubhai Ambani and Nusli Wadia. Says Rahul Mehra, cricket lover and lawyer, whose public interest litigations have deeply embarrassed BCCI, “I see interesting days ahead. BCCI can’t have monopoly on cricket. Soon there could be Tata and Reliance and other players starting their own league.”

who will win?

At the moment, though, it is Subhash Chandra and ICL, who are giving sleepless nights to Pawar and his band of managers; Reliance & Tata do not really figure at the moment. But as any analyst worth his salt knows, this corporate war between BCCI and ICL – like all other corporate wars – will not be decided by emotions but by the strategic strengths and weakness of the two rivals. Quite simply, BCCI has been peddling a product called cricket for 75 years with no rival around to threaten its monopoly. The new rival ICL, too, will peddle the same product – cricket. So, the war between the two will boil down to product differentiation & the ability to convince the consumer that his product offers better value.

The consumer here is the die hard cricket fan who becomes a couch potato the moment India plays a match. If BCCI can retain the eye balls, then there is no doubt that the sponsors and advertisers that pour millions of dollars into the game will continue to patronise the monopoly. Dirty tricks will of course be par for course since this is corporate warfare in the classical sense. In that case, ICL will end up as a challenger that couldn’t quite storm the BCCI citadel. And at the moment, pundits seem to think that BCCI has the upper hand. Says Shridhar, National Creative Director, Leo Burnett, “ICL at present poses no threat to BCCI as far as snatching sponsorship rights are concerned.” But Shridhar himself concedes that BCCI cannot afford to stay complacent. “ICL is a great opportunity and a very good thing to have happened to cricket and advertisers. All the small brands that couldn’t touch cricket or cricket players because of their skyrocketing prices can now associate themselves with a game that the nation loves,” he adds. Don’t be surprised if ICL emerges as a Nirma teaching a lesson or two to Hindustan UniLever Ltd! The very fact that BCCI managers are acting as if they have been scalded by boiling water is proof of their concern that the hunky dory days of monopoly are coming to an end. Steve Ballmer may not have succeeded in burying Google. And it is extremely doubtful if Pawar and his managers can bury ICL. Pawar should know from personal experience about breaking monopolies. Once upon a time, the Congress party held the state of Maharashtra as a monopoly. Till Pawar himselfchallenged and demolished!

Nothing official about it

Cricket is the only game in India that enjoys a mass following. No wonder, when marketing honchos of consumer product and service companies draw up plans to reach target consumers, cricket matches become an irresistible vehicle for advertising. Inevitably, the lack of choice leads to frequent wars between sponsors & advertisers. For more than a decade, Coke and Pepsi have fought protracted and often vicious wars over Brand Cricket. Perhaps the most remembered is the 1996 World Cup that had Coke as official sponsor. In a masterful display of sneak attack, Pepsi took the fizz out of Coke by simply running the famous ‘Nothing official about it’ campaign! Nike & Adidas, too, have been similarly embroiled in many a battle, as have dozens of other rival brands. Perhaps the most telling example of how corporate warfare affects cricket dates back to 1990s, when it was rumoured that Rahul Dravid didn’t find a place in the one day team because he endorsed Cok instead of Pepsi. Expect more controversy as the ICL-BCCI battle heats up.