Can Essel's Chandra end BCCI's cricket monopoly? Only if he doesn't play Scrooge

Is Subhash Chandra, boss of the Essel Group that includes broadcaster Zee Entertainment, getting ready to take a second crack at ending the monopoly of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the International Cricket Council (ICC)? Since India is the lynchpin of the ICC, being the main generator of revenues for international cricket, Chandra would effectively be challenging the BCCI’s super-profitable monopoly.

Having burnt his fingers once with the poorly-funded Indian Cricket League (ICL), which wound up two years after it was launched in 2007 after arch-rival Lalit Modi and the BCCI launched the hugely successful Indian Premier League (IPL), Chandra seems to be playing his cards differently this time.

An employee of Ten Sports, an Essel company, was found to have registered two websites (worldcricketcouncil.in and globalcricketcouncil.in) last year. With the ICC starting an investigation to figure out what was happening, Chandra yesterday (27 April) denied Ten Sports had anything to do with his plans to create a rival cricket league. An Essel statement said it was “now geared up to enter the sports business at a global level, focusing on cricket, since it has been limited to Commonwealth countries. Our research reflects that there is an immense opportunity to make it a global sport.”

Chandra also denied that Lalit Modi, who himself is now in the BCCI’s doghouse after being turfed out of the IPL by N Srinivasan, would be a part of his plans. But Modi himself did not do much to make this denial convincing. In two tweets, he said: “I have always been a supporter of sports. Currently there is one private sports body @ICC - if another private sports body globally was to come up globally - beneficiary will be players and fans. So I support anyone making attempt.”

Subhash Chandra and Modi may or may not join forces to challenge the ICC’s monopoly, but there are good reasons to play coy for now.

First, Ten Sports already holds broadcasting rights to home matches in five ICC member countries: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, West Indies, and Sri Lanka. Any association with a rival cricket body would mean loss of these rights.

Second, a premature disclosure – as has now happened - would also enable the ICC to make tough rules for the poaching of players. Players hold the key to success. Chandra’s Indian Cricket League failed partly because IPL managed to keep the star players with itself, leaving Chandra’s league with lesser-known players, who failed to draw in the big crowds on TV after IPL was launched. The Guardian reported last week that the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (Fica), a group of players’ unions, was approached by Subhash Chandra’s henchmen clandestinely on the creation of a rival cricketing body. Fica apparently was uncomfortable with the hush-hush nature of talks, and withdrew from it.

But now that the cat is more or less out of the bag, what are Subhash Chandra’s chances of success this time around? Can he create a rival global league and entice the big names to join him?

Four factors will decide his success this time.

One, he will have to find big bucks, either by himself or by roping in other big businessmen to fund the new league. The last time, his ICL looked like a poor man’s tournament and lacked stars. This time he has to make his World Cricket Council, or whatever it is called, look like a league with well-known names to draw viewers, both in the stadia and on TV. While Mukesh Ambani is associated with an IPL team (Mumbai Indians), there are enough big Indian businessmen who are still not directly involved in Indian cricket. Chandra will have to rope some of them in.

Two, he will have to break the unity of the Indian, English and Australian cricket boards - and entice many of the players signed up with them. These three boards rule the roost at the ICC, forming a kind of super-rich club sharing most of the cricketing world’s spoils, India taking the most. Chandra will not succeed if he cannot get big ticket players from these three nations to join up.

At the very least, he will have to develop an Indian player list that does not look like a B-grade version of the current team with super-stars like Dhoni and Kohli, among others. These are the names Indian fans are familiar with, and at least some of them are not there, the league will face rough weather.

The other five cricketing nations – the ones Chandra has broadcasting rights to in home matches – are poor cousins to the Big Three. Presumably, they can be split with greater ease, if Chandra is able to show he can bring in big names from the Big Three cricketing powers.

Three, apart from splitting the Big Three, and retaining the loyalties of the ICC’s poorer five, Chandra will have to sign up the loyalties of cricket’s outsiders – the Irelands, Hollands and UAEs, among others, not to speak of the Kenyas, USAs and other newbies of the game.

Four, Chandra will also have to remake domestic cricket, by taking it down to the universities and schools, apart from creating regional and club-based tournaments to rival the IPL. Without these tournaments to create the stars of tomorrow, both BCCI and Chandra will be fishing in the same pool.

The BCCI’s monopoly is worth challenging, for cricket has been reduced to a closed club by its super-profits and high-handedness in running the show.

India has enough talent to create not one, but at least two or three more major cricket leagues.

However, if Subhash Chandra is going to do it this time, he cannot stint on the money. At the very least he will have to plonk Rs 1,000 crore on the table – for starters. Or get other big businessmen to provide the money.

Kerry Packer created his own league (World Series Cricket) by showing players the money. Chandra has to do the same. Especially now that both ICC and Fica have woken up.