It is raining money in cricket and for India, it is a 12-month bumper season. Because of this, the BCCI conquered world cricket, IPL teams laugh all the way from the dugout to the bank and top players earn a crore for a 40-over game.
Cricket is in a happy space because of fans – they are the foundation that supports its grand structure. Faceless fans fuel the cricket economy and raise Virat Kohli to a level where he is on the Forbes rich athlete list, India’s power list and a social media influencer with more than 300 million followers. Shubhman Gill is the new rising star, rapidly climbing the popularity charts.
Fans have always supported cricket but the irony is they have always been badly treated. They stand outside the team hotel hoping to catch a glimpse of their cricket gods. They wait patiently for hours to buy tickets, often suffering rough treatment from the police. Despite these hardships, fans are neglected and taken for granted. Strangely, the most valuable part of cricket’s value chain is the least appreciated.
Fans can be slotted into different categories- divided by background and level of passion but united by their unconditional love for cricket. At the bottom of the pyramid is the ordinary category, the public. With cheap tickets in hand, they queue up at stadiums 3 hours before the gates open and sit all day on concrete benches exposed to the sun.
At the other end are the affluent fans, those who wear expensive team jerseys and watch cricket sitting in hospitality boxes. Some of them are stats gurus who know the strike rate of Rohit and Abhishek Sharma, the powerplay/death over numbers of Boult and Bumrah and the economy figures of Axar and Harshal Patel. These literate cricket junkies are completely clued in and can discuss serious cricket issues with nuanced arguments.
There is another subset, the hardcore bhakts who swear by King Kohli and the divine power of Thala MSD. Fans think their chosen heroes can do no wrong and remain loyal to them through thick (meaning good form) and thin (poor form). Brand CSK and RCB are driven by the power and personality of MSD and Kohli. Both have remained with their franchise from the beginning of IPL whereas Jaydev Unadkat, who has represented seven teams, is a cricket nomad pitching his tent in new locations. Basic point: Fans love cricket, but love players even more.
Next is the armchair category, the opinionated cricket experts, comprising mostly of people who never played the game, nor watched it live at the ground. This breed is self-taught, with knowledge picked up by listening to television experts and tracking the news in the digital space. They understand reverse swing and reverse sweep, and the wrist position for the bouncer and the loopy slow bouncer. They can lecture bowlers on the subtleties of the knuckle and carrom ball and the cross seam in-cutter. They can lecture batsmen about bat speed and head position. Essentially, they know everything- field positions, player match-ups, choice of the impact player, and the timing of the strategic time out.
Such understanding empowers fans to take the next logical step, of picking teams and playing online fantasy sport. Greater mobile penetration and cheap data has created this exciting sunrise industry where evolved fans play for bragging rights or cash awards. Earlier, a cricket-obsessed fan was a passive observer; now, smartphone in hand, he is an active participant with skin in the game.
With more money flowing into the ecosystem through online digital participation, marketing gurus are delighted. Every fan is a potential consumer and customer, and there is a business opportunity to ‘monetise’ them and expand cricket’s commercial footprint.
The IPL is proof that fans are ready to spend big time on cricket. Matches are usually sold out though ticket rates are not cheap. In Delhi, high-end hospitality costs ₹22000, in Bangalore and Mumbai the price could go up to 40,000 rupees for key games.
While much has changed, the neglect of fans continues. Facilities at venues are far from comfortable and the entire stadium experience (access, parking, seating, f and b) can be a nightmare. A pity because cricket is booming, the IPL’s commercial numbers are staggering and tv/digital penetration is at an all-time high.
There is much talk of a ‘fan first’ policy but till now that is more slogan, less reality. Despite cricket’s robust health fans are still searching for the promised better tomorrow.