The summer of cricketmania is here with a lemon tart of Ukrainian cheerleaders, a teaspoonful dash of incompetency (but Commie Bongs are always making mess of things, right?) and a sackful or $1 billion investment. Then there's the dancing middle aged bollywood heroes as the appetizer. Sounds fun.
The Good:
* There is little good about IPL when we go into details. But if things go right (think 32 teams, 9 month calendar, new stadiums....) IPL has the potential to do what EPL did for the British economy, what NFL/NBA/MLB did for the yankees. Which means, a lot of people are going to get rich. And unemployed school dropouts can sell pav bhaji outside stadiums.
* Inflation will be a thing of the past. People will be glued in front of the tele, no one will buy and prices will come down to, as Big Mac says, to "baap ke zamaane" levels.
* A lot of cricketers with better probability of being the first man in Mars rather than playing for the national team will get their share of fame and game.
* if things go right, entrepreneurs may follow the same model in developing football, hockey in the country. India's sports is bottlenecked with politicians and crooks managing sports governing bodies (think K P S Gill, Priyaranjan Das Munshi) rather than professionals. Commercialization of a sports is good, in a manner of speaking. The most successful sports and leagues in the world, say, Formula 1, NFL, NBA, EPL, Spanish La Liga are managed by competent people and all are heavily commercialized. Deal with it.
People in other sports in the country always whine cricket steals the limelight. That's hogwash. Get rid of idiots in the governing bodies and follow the development model of the EPL in the 80s.
The Bad
* Non-existent regulations. If 7 or 8 foreign players play in a team, where will the Indian boys go? There's a reason foreign football leagues caps foreign player strengths in a team. The national team will suffer, eventually, if things are as it is.
* Horrendous PR campaign. The ads are pathetic, mostly. The PR campaign also messed up with the "auction of players" controversy. No one would've said a word if they had followed what the Americans in NFL define the auctions process: Draft and Free Agency. The IPL people copied the NFL model of Free Agency and as it happens with every bollywood film, changed the finer points to make it sound unique. (it's also amazing how the media termed it as unique system which its clearly not).
* Inadequate infrastructure. But that's a given in this country.
The Ugly
* Ukrainian cheerleaders. Sure they look pretty, but just doesn't fit in with whole picture. The visual mismatch is glaring. It's not about the skimpy clothes but cheerleading is so American a concept, at least i don't see the cheerleaders, Ukrainian or Indian blend in with the cheering stadium crowd.
* Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta and every bollywood celebrity. Shahrukh Khan is such a eyesore with all that dancing and fist throwing and his other shenanigans. The pretension makes me sick. But that's commercialization for you. He's in it for the money and to make his teenage son look cool to girls in school (as if being Shahrukh's son isn't cool enough for the girls). If i remember correctly the newspaper article, Shah Rukh clearly stated he'll be out of IPL next year if his team doesn't perform.
* IPL team names. It seems everyone has some kingly fetish. Except Deccan Chargers (which sounds ominously similar to the NFL team San Diego Chargers), every other team is afflicted with a royal fetish. Think about it. Knightriders (korbo, lorbo, jeetbo re....it sounds so, i don't know, skin crawling, i'll scratch myself to death), Super Kings, Royals, Kings XI. And does the blatant promotioning campaign of Vijay Mallya needs to mentioned? Royal Challengers. hah.
This is not all.But i'm out of words and out of patience. And what's the point? Let the people enjoy what they enjoy.
