How the BCCI got its Mojo
The South African tour of India, the first one in the
post-apartheid era was historical in more ways than one. The origin of
the BCCI marketing and financial juggernaut can be found in that tour.
In his brilliant book 'A Maidan View', Mihir Bose has narrated the
events that led to the windfall gains. Here goes.
1991 was
also the year when cricket finally became one family when for the first
time South Africa having shed its sporting apartheid past, played a non
white country, launching its rebirth with a one-day series in India.
That historic tour made the Indian cricket board realise that it had
television rights it could sell. Before that Doordarshan, the state
broadcaster, had televised domestic cricket, and far from paying
anything, had often demanded fees from the board to cover the cost of
production.
Now two South African television channels
wanted the rights. Amrit Mathur, who worked for the then Indian cricket
board president Madhavrao Scindia, has a precise recollection of what
happened. Mathur recalls, ''We had to find out first who owned the
rights and then how much they were worth.' Mathur discovered that the
rights belonged to the Indian cricket board and their value was much
more than what had been initially anticipated. Mathur recalls:
I
checked with Doordarshan first about the rights and having found out we
had the rights I then asked them what figure I should ask the South
Africans. Then I rang Jagmohan Dalmiya, told him about the Doordarshan
figure and he suggested a higher figure. I thought I would ask for even
more. However when the South Africans rang, I did not disclose the
figure I had in mind but asked them what they were prepared to offer.
They gave me a figure that surprised me, it was much more than what I
or Dalmiya had thought of, let alone Doordarshan had suggested. The
whole episode revealed to the cricket board that it had rights and
these rights were worth a lot of money. Before that we had never got
any money for our rights or even realised we could sell our television
rights.
So in one of the great ironies of cricket, as
South Africa at last discovered what it is to play against a non-white
country, the Indians discovered that they were sitting on a gold mine
they had not known existed.
From - A Maidan View by Mihir Bose
Sometimes
its better to sit back and get a historic perspective of why and how
things stand today the way they do. Makes for a better T20 vision for
the future.