Lalit Modi: The home run

It’s the mother of all marketing successes and has put Twenty-20 cricket in India at par with the largest sports franchises around the world. Christened the DLF Indian Premier League (IPL), the T20 cricket competition created by Lalit Kumar Modi, Chairman & Commissioner, IPL, and Vice President, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), has transformed the global cricket landscape and underlined the Indian cricket board’s position as the 800-pound gorilla in the International Cricket Council (ICC).

But success has not come easily to Modi and the BCCI. To begin with, they were beaten to the T20 draw by the Zee TV-backed Indian Cricket League, which launched its tournament a few months before IPL. Many, in fact, say that it was the ICL threat that goaded Modi to get his act together in a hurry. Much hectic lobbying later, BCCI and Modi succeeded in getting ICC to dub the ICL a “rebel” tournament, thus, denying it the legitimacy required to attract the top cricketers in the world. Then, it had to contend with covert hostility and opposition from the English Cricket Board, which feared (in retrospect, realistically) the loss of its own (fading) primacy in ICC and a devaluation of its county season in the international calendar. But Modi soldiered on regardless, and how!

Challenge: Establish and popularise a city-based league system in a till then untried version of cricket Strategy: Rope in deep pocketed franchisees and recruit the world’s best cricketers for IPL Outcome: BCCI virtually runs international cricket; other cricket boards want to emulate the model

Modi is justifiably elated. “Of course, I feel vindicated. I would not be speaking the truth if I said otherwise. Sceptics had raised all kinds of doubts and objections before IPL was launched. The concept of city teams was untried and untested,” he says. The new short format left analysts wondering whether people would actually be interested and there were also sneaking suspicions about the new league’s ability to attract eyeballs especially as its timings (from early evening to late night) placed it headlong in competition with saas-bahu soaps on television. “I am glad that IPL proved to be a runaway success and BCCI was able to realise a long-cherished dream. I think it is all about believing in yourself and having the conviction to carry on with your beliefs in spite of the odds,” says Modi.

And proof of the pudding is in the eating: Today, foreign cricketing boards are looking to replicate the success of the Indian format. “Cricket Australia, ECB and Cricket South Africa are all looking at ways to duplicating the IPL’s success in their respective countries. What better testimony can there be to IPL than this?” asks Modi.

—Shamni Pande