I happened to accidentally switch on the Star Ananda channel on the TV today afternoon. As I was leaving the channel post-haste to cut wastage of time the face of the BCCI minister – sorry, the BCCI president who also happens to be agriculture minister at the center – appeared on the screen.
It was a kind-of-meeting and someone was speaking. As I could follow in the short time I spent there, the occasion presumably was to counter the threat of ICL, that ‘enfant terrible’.
The man who was boringly explaining something suddenly referred to the English Premier League or simply Premier League to most. He was saying that the money generated only from gate collections through the year there exceeded a billion pounds (I think I heard it right).
I was almost struck by a lightning. The Premier League is billed as the world’s most watched sporting event and its TV rights are sold worldwide because nearly half a billion people watch the games on TV. The games are telecast in as many as a whopping 195 countries.
No sporting event in India would muster even a small percentage of that money. Not even cricket. People who argue otherwise do not consider that the only cricket games Indians like to watch are those participated by the ‘Team India’.
Ranji Trophy games or club-level matches just do not make the cut for the Indian masses to watch either on the field or on TV. So much for cricket..(sigh)!
But what about football? True, Kolkattans watch the game especially if it is played by one of the big 3 clubs. Elsewhere in the country the picture except Goa and perhaps Kerala is very dismal.
The recent Fed Cup semifinal match between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan at Ludhiana, which the former won to go to the final, fetched just about Rs.8000 as gate collection (ref: today’s ABP). Since the tickets were priced Rs.10 and 20, it is anybody’s guess how many people have actually seen the game on the field.
Perhaps never before has any East-Mohun match fetched so paltry an amount from ticket sale.
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