- Indian national ball
India is known as the "open hanging" country, all kinds of counterintuitive phenomena are shameful, I believe that many people will naturally think of it as a sports power after watching India's military exercises. But the reality is quite "face-slapping", because India, as one of the weakest sports countries in the world, is the "insulator" of most sports medals (India won its first gold medal since the founding of the Country at the Tokyo Olympics). However, in this country with a low degree of basic sports development, there is a super sport that is popular throughout India - cricket.
Indian Cricket League promotional image
- History of cricket in India
More than 100 years ago, the British first brought cricket to India, and since then cricket has begun its "crazy life" in India.
But in the early days, cricket was a sport of aristocratic origin, and ordinary people could not participate directly. However, the local indigenous rulers, in order to please the Indian nobility, still vigorously promoted the sport of cricket in their own jurisdictions. Since then, cricket has become the most common sport in India, and Indians wielding boards can always be seen on empty grass and in the bustling streets.
However, just having a popular base is far from allowing cricket to have the conditions to become India's national ball, and cricket wants to completely establish its own national ball status in India, which means that Indian cricket must achieve enough heavyweight honors in the world.
1983 was a significant year for Indian cricket. In that year, India won the third Cricket World Cup, successfully inspiring India's national pride.
In 1983, India won the third Cricket World Cup
- Indian Cricket Premier League (IPL)
The potential value of the league
In India, more than 40% of the people are cricket fans, and India, as the world's second most populous country, has a fan base of nearly 500 million people, which is a huge "gold mine"!
League development
In order to make the game more compact and more ornamental, cricket has been shortening the schedule in the process of development, gradually changing from a three-day game to 50 goals per game, and finally reforming the "T-20" format under the regulations of the International Cricket Council (ICC), that is, 20 rounds per round. The reform of the shortened format of cricket also contributed to the creation of the Indian cricket league IPL in disguise.
The Indian Cricket League IPL in 2008 will model on the American Professional League, allowing league teams to be franchised, and eventually 26 teams will be consolidated into 8 teams, and 8 teams will be sold to Indian industry giants. Among them, India's richest man, Mukesh, bought the Mumbai-based Indian team, while the Indian cement king Srinivasan and the son of the media king Murdoch also paid for the stake in the team. In the end, these 8 teams sold for $724 million!
India's richest cricketer, Virat Kohli — has a net worth of $92 million
League broadcast rights
Star India acquired global rights for Rs 16,347.55 crore (US$2.55 billion, far exceeding Sony India's Rs 110.5 billion offer). The Indian Cricket Board receives an average of Rs 3,269,500 crore (US$510 million) in broadcast rights revenue per year.
In early February of this year, the Indian Cricket Federation, the national regulator of Indian cricket matches, planned to officially bid for the broadcast and streaming rights of the Indian Premier League this week, and Walt Disney Corp., Sony Pictures Networks India, Sony Pictures India subsidiary, and Viacom18, a joint venture between ViacomCBS and Reliance Industries, all intend to bid.
Player salaries
Indian Cricket League players have the top weekly salary after the NBA league, far ahead of MLB, Premier League and NFL. In April and May 2008, in order to attract top players from all over the world, Cricket Association Vice President Morty offered sky-high annual salaries for the players, so many of the world's top players rushed to India to pan for gold. The average weekly salary of IPL players in the Indian Cricket League reached $4.33 million, while the average weekly salary of the American Cricket League (MLB) was below IPL of $4.17 million.
The popularity of Indian cricket was staggering, but since cricket had only made one appearance at the 1900 Paris Olympics and never joined the Games since, India had lost an important gold medal.