Pratters, you make an excellent point.
But let me play Devil's advocate if I may.
We know from World Series Cricket and Super League (Rugby League - Australia and United Kingdom) that if a rich media mogul wants to, he can buy the players by paying them outrageously increased salaries and set up a new competition. Now that revolution had already happened in Cricket under World Series Cricket in the late 1970's. It could not happen again, could it?
Except the WSC revolution only primarily occurred in Australia and the West Indies. The West Indies Board sold out and the Australian board lost their A side effectively. After two years, it had to compromise and reconicile with the media mogul to give him what he wanted. Cricket on his channel with advertisements.
Is such a competition feasible for talent? Yes - you continue to poach from the existing and continuing player pool at the level below. Better yet, a media mogul is not having to pay for that unprofitable development and feeder competitions beneath international level. Altneratively, it can buy the minnow and domestic boards, and take effective control of the whole infrastructure. Allan Border in 1993 was contract for 90,000 AUD. Now Cricket Australia pays approximately 10 of its 20 contracted cricketers in excess of a million AUD. But there are talks of super competitions being considered to poach these players.
The money in India and India's love for T20 cricket is the fertile ground for a new revolution. It does not need to be the BCCI. Just look at the ICL. So the BCCI does need to look after its players well, and ensure the success of the IPL, because any media mogul could intervene to establish a new tournament.
On this forum I notice a lot of complaints about JAMODI, T20 as slap and giggle and loathing of Joe Public. But that is just not a reality that the players and coaches are professional athletes who work for money and that cricket is an entertainment business. Sure, all actors want to make oscar award winning films, but blockbusters pay better so they want to do a lot of those as well. Faced with the stark choice if an oscar or two more, or living in Beverley Hills with repeated roles in Iron Man or the Avengers, if mutually exclusive, we know which role they will invariably select. They'll certainly leave New Zealand or Australia for Hollywood, so why not Bollywood?
I think the BCCI is worried about a competitor establishing a rebel competition(s). It wants to display strength.
I think the BCCI is not necessarily always going about it the right way.
The BCCI is sitting there with massive revenue streams from the media it sells it cricket too and from the ICC tournaments. It has a monopoly control over the Indian team and cricket in India. Except, where there is huge money, a monopoly is only as good as the barriers to entry. Media moguls can get over those barriers to entry.
They've done it before in Cricket and Rugby League. They made Rugby professional. It will happen it other sporting codes. It could well happen again.
Now we can tell the BCCI that they are a custodian of the game and to always act in total strict accordance of that responsibility, whatever that may subjectively entail. I agree that the BCCI is now a custodian of the game and has responsibility to other nations. But the BCCI does not want a media mogul to just take the game away from them. It only has to buy the England team, and the Australian team, and then the Indian team. It could replace England with South Africa, why not, the English selectors often do.
To a media mogul, international cricket can be viewed as a club championship. There are traditionally strong clubs like Australia, the equivalent of Manchester United, some clubs which are hot and cold like England, who I guess are Liverpool or Tottenham, then there are clubs like West Indies, who used to be strong but now fight off relegation every year, like Newcastle or Leeds. There is the new strength on the block, South Africa the Manchester City. Zimbabwe has been relegated to the first division but can play FA cup matches. I am not an EPL fan so I could well be inaccurate with my use of club analogies but I think the point is being made. In America, the clubs are called sporting franchieses, which are repeatedly relocated to new cities. To a media mogul it is about profit and having sport on his channels that people will pay to watch and advertisers will pay to broadcast on. Ticket sales just make for better looking television. Australia may have packed stadiums but the real money for the CA is in broadcasting rights, not selling the tickets.
India's rising middle class and love of pyjama cricket, and the fears for the establishment that that poses, will continue to drive change. Not always for the best or what we deem to be in the nature of 'custodians of the game' - because a media mogul will not view themselves that way at all. The media mogul will just see supply and demand to obtain profits. As a New Zealand cricket fan, I was potentially better off between or before the IPL being established and definitely before 'the big three' took over the ICC. But I do resent the India's economic growth and increased middle class numbers neither. It is a fact of life that India will continue to grow economically. There will be change throughout the world, in many facets including cricket, as India and China become larger economies.
In the USA, college football was the ball and end all despite being amateur (or shamatuer) and professional football was a joke. Well professional football become big business over time. So is cricket with India's cricket mad middle class population increasing.
A media mogul may play Africa vs Antipodes vs Europe vs Hindi vs Muslim as the teams. Or India and the Rest of Asia. Keep them as nations or allocate them solely to Asian cities as clubs to better suit India's TV audience. International cricket does not have to be based on nations. It just needs to be packaged into formats that Indians will watch, knowing its the best of the best. Like the NBA is with its players from all over the globe.
