The Era Of Sports Entertainment

World Wrestling Federation started it. A modest, uninteresting sport like wrestling with an extremely limited reach and practically no saleability was suddenly made into an extremely entertaining, albeit fake sport by adding huge (read HUGE) dollops of glamour, drama, celebrity value and a structured delivery of edge of the seat entertainment to it. It did many things for wrestling itself; took it from being a “basement” game worshipped and followed by a handful of people to being a global media property (don’t we all remember being hooked onto it for sometime??). More importantly, it allowed for the sport to be an extremely lucrative medium for advertisers (Gillette’s been an advertiser on it globally for many years now; sports like American football and Boxing frequently ride on “customized” events in WWE to extend reach of their own sport). In short, a sport called wrestling became sports entertainment and thus managed to bridge many barriers.

And that’s precisely what’s happening to cricket through the IPL. From being a game played within 12 countries and watched by only about 1/6th of the world’s population; the game has re-invented itself through Twenty20 to become a lot more acceptable to a large mass. Think about it, which other sport in the world that’s widely watched requires an attention span of either one or five days? Baskteball – 90 minutes, Football, Soccer – 90 minutes, American football – 3 hours at the max, Tennis – again 3 hours at a max. Clearly, cricket in it current form could not have extended its reach. It needed to be capsuled, reduced so that people used to watching games for a few hours after a hard day of work could enjoy it.

That’s probably also why GEC channels have ruled the roost for so long in India. In most countries outside of India, key sports events are telecast live everyday at prime time (case in question – NBA, American Football, Rugby, English Premier League and even boxing for that matter); any sport that the nation wants to watch is served piping hot on a regular enough basis at prime time. And its not like these are one off things; these sports events are typically spread over a period of 4 – 6 months with a telecast everyday. Its only in India that sports in a “capsule driven, entertainment focused, regular enough” form has stayed away from our television sets.

And now IPL has changed that. It now offers the larger mass of India “entertainment” at prime time. And that’s pretty much what it is. A generous sprinkling of celebrities, enough melodrama on the field (“Slapgate”, an animated Tendulkar) and nail biting finish every second match. Sounds so much like WWE. For all the loyalists of WWE, what’s the few things that attract us to the game (other than the hot women on display and men beating each other up). ? It’s the heightened rivalry between two individuals or teams, the controversies that surround every match, an almost guaranteed nail biting finish to important matches and the loyalty that we have for our favorite stars…. Sounds quite similar to why we watch the IPL doesn’t it (just like wrestling’s a given in WWE, cricket’s a given in IPL, so that don’t count).

As much as purists will cringe at the mention of this fact; the reality is that the days of the sport called cricket are now over. It’s the era of “cricket entertainment” that’s upon us. As much as we keep saying that tests will remain the strongest test of a cricketer’s character, in days to come, we may see fewer tests being played than usual. The game needs T20 and the IPL to become famous so that it can grow its revenues by becoming attractive to audiences outside of the cricket playing nations. The advertisers need T20 because the eyeballs are more and also more focused. The players need the IPL because barring 10% of the current players (mostly Indians), most others cannot make a livelihood out of cricket; something that IPL allows them to do. That’s why the Australians have put their foot down and said that next year, they’ll prioritize the IPL over national duties.

So, will India vs. Australia and India vs. Pakistan remain the world’s most sought after rivalry in 5 years from now? Probably not, it may probably be Mumbai Indians vs. Melbourne Mavericks. The loyalties may shift from countries to clubs. Or just like the WWE, where two leagues (RAW and Smackdown) operate independently with their own roster of players but meet at every main event to judge who’s the better league, we may have our own league rivalries (IPL vs. ICL). Just like Wrestlemania is the annual battleground between the two leagues, the Criket World Cup will be a battle between the cricket leagues too.

Who knows what the possibilities are. But one thing’s for sure, “cricket entertainment”; here we come!!