There has been a lot of chatter about the IPL’s TV ratings having dropped this year. I have also written about the games becoming a tad boring, with bowlers becoming mere bystanders. Having said that, the drop in ratings is not something that needs to be celebrated. Anyone doing so is making a mistake. The IPL is India’s only global sporting brand and, while constructively critical suggestions are welcome, it is plain foolish to be happy about the ratings having dropped. The success of the IPL is an Indian story that needs to be celebrated, not berated. We need to take pride in the property and ensure that it gets better over time.
I have seen two different types of reactions to the numbers dropping. First, people have turned defensive and cited the digital example, saying the numbers haven’t really dropped but rather that people’s consumption patterns have changed. While this is indeed true, it is also true that television numbers, net-net, have fallen. So, there is no need to be defensive. Rather, we need to introspect and see how the numbers can recover again.
The second reaction is as if this is a welcome development and, finally, the IPL juggernaut has started to stutter. I can’t digest this reaction at all. It is our own property, and yet it seems we don’t want it to be successful. You can indeed feel fatigue or frustration with bowlers being taken out of the game, but that doesn’t mean you would want the property to fail.
What we tend to forget when we say such things is how big an ecosystem depends on the IPL. It is not just the players and the broadcasters. It is also the small vendor sitting outside Eden Gardens, Chinnaswamy or Wankhede, making a few hundred rupees on every match day. It is about the water sellers outside these stadiums who wait for April-May and the IPL to make some money that will last them the next few months. It is about the transport, hospitality, aviation and hotel industries as well.
With the world struggling to deal with the shock of war, industries in the country are already under pressure. Taking away income from them does not really help. The IPL is a safe bet, and many depend on the competition to stay stable. To see them unsettled would only be uncomfortable and disturbing, and there is nothing to be happy about in that. I don’t think the naysayers think about any of this while feeling pleased about the lower numbers this year.
India needs the IPL. It has made us the nerve centre of global cricket and has been at the core of the BCCI’s financial muscle. It has also prompted the start of the WPL and has offered hundreds of women an opportunity to make it big. The truth is that the IPL is at the core of the Indian cricket ecosystem, and no one should feel happy seeing it falter. It is wrong to do so, and there are no two ways about it.
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