IPL FEVER: Bigger, fatter, IPL ready to rock and roll

Is the Indian Premier League for youngsters or for oldies as well, this could well be a question ranking on top. In the good old days, when the IPL was conceived by Lalit Modi, it was thought of as a tournament where fresh legs and more energetic players would lend thrust. Of course, at that time, for someone coming out of retirement, like Aussie Adam Gilchrist, the IPL was a platform to play and earn decent bucks.

Indeed, as the IPL 2025 becomes and adult and matures, in its 18^th edition, there are so many great memories to recall. The growth of the IPL has defied economics in every sense. When it became a ‘Billion Dollar Baby’ as one headline of a premier magazine wrote over a decade ago, people thought it was being overhyped. No, the IPL is part of the Indians, at office, at home, travelling in cabs and Metros. It has become top of the mind.

If you think the IPL is only cricket, forget it. It is cricket plus entertainment. Add to it the glitz, glamour and whatever else it adds as spice, the IPL has created a big ecosystem. For those who blame the IPL for other sporting disciplines suffering, the whole argument is flawed. Cricket sponsorship and investment returns outweigh other Olympics sports in India. It is no secret, the IPL causes massive heartburn for Pakistan, Australia and England.

The Aussies pioneered white ball cricket, or so they thought. Yes, the ‘Big Boys Play At Night’ theme was big when Kerry Packer launched his own breakaway circus. It was called pyjama cricket at that time, since players were not sporting white flannels but coloured clothing. And yet, the same Aussies could not, initially, digest the birth of the IPL. Late Peter Roebuck, a celebrated cricket writer and former Somerset captain of the English Country was one of the first to lambast the IPL in 2008. This writer had met him in a New Delhi five-star hotel during the auction. He referred to the IPL auction as ‘cattle sale.’

Fact is, cattle sale or player sale, auctions are part of sports dynamics, though Saudi Arabia being chosen as destination of the IPL auction in December 2024 was defining. People thought the deserts of Saudia are famous only for rich oil fields and its Holy religious places for followers of Islam.  No, Saudi Arabia is changing and hosting the IPL auction is as sign they accept the IPL as something which they should also emulate.

None can deny, the birth, growth and the maturity of the IPL at Age 18 has been a great process. No team can complain of disbalance in a financial sense. Sponsorship, branding and the IPL marketing is today a subject study for students of MBA and business management. That the IPL survived recession in 2009, the global Covid pandemic for two seasons and was accepted as important even as India went to the General Elections three time in this period is proof of it being robust.

Naysayers have been proved wrong, how the IPL would destroy cricket. If anything, the IPL has led to more T20 leagues mushrooming all over the world. The T20 magic is more than the flavour of instant noodles cooked in 2 minutes. This is about four to five hours of a match, which you can watch anywhere. Going by ticket sales for Royal Challengers Bengaluru for home matches, one can say, the public is willing to spend an obscene sum of money. So, be it a Coldplay concert or an IPL match at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, folks are willing to pay and watch. Here is wishing the IPL Fever spares none in 2025!