In The Big Leagues
At the onset of the previous century, sport could not support a household.
Its importance lay in the social presence it garnered in our lives — an Indian football team defeating their British counterparts would serve as a reminder that the latter’s apparent superiority over the locals was nothing more than a myth, and serve as a fillip to the nationalist cause, against Colonial oppressors. In the early decades, Jesse Owens’ successes on the race track showed the world that colored individuals were no less than the whites, and that his race could not deter his ability to race.
Business, however, was the real path for earning daily bread for one’s family — and for all its nobility, this was a category sport fell short in.
And while both had impacts of varying magnitudes on human lives, it was taken for granted that these two were pursuits totally distinctive from each other: Sport was sport and business meant business, society concluded, and never the ‘twain shall meet.
At the onset of the current century, that perception could not be more wrong.
In 2003, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich settled down for an enticing European knockout tie between Manchester United and Real Madrid. A riveting game of football unfolded before his eyes. The legendary Ronaldo — the Brazilian phenomenon, not his fashionable Portuguese namesake — scored thrice against the English team, but it was the latter who somehow managed to overturn this deficit, and finished the game 4–3 victors, in the process knocking out the Spanish heavyweights.
Incredibly excited by what he saw, Abramovich knew his next step that very moment. He was sitting in the plush chairs of a stadium VIP Box, which essentially implied that he was sitting on piles of money. A prompt bid to take over ownership of Manchester United followed. The offer was rejected as soon as it was made — it was not lucrative enough.
The Russian had struggled all the way up in the social ladder, before oil made him an overnight billionaire at a young age. A man this tenacious and persevering would not take to being rebuffed very kindly. He soldiered on, with his characteristic drive, with the singular aim of acquiring a new target for his cash.
At the time, Chelsea Football Club was emerging as a potential force in English football. With a shrewd tactician at the helm — Claudio Ranieri, later lauded for his improbable successes at Leicester City in 2016 — the Blues had shown dedication and drive not dissimilar to Abramovich himself, in order to establish themselves in the sport. There was, however, one nagging issue that was gnawing away at their ambitions of emerging as Goliath, from David — a chronic lack of funds.
Funds which the Londoners needed. Funds which Roman Abramovich had.
Overnight, the club’s ownership changed hands, and Chelsea fans woke up one fine summer morning to stumble across the fact that their beloved team was now the richest in the land. Over and above the 140 million pounds that the Russian tycoon paid for sole ownership rights, his deep pockets and never ending financial resources made Chelsea a force to be reckoned with.
With an annual turnover of more than 30 million pounds, coupled with trophies aplenty, the takeover is seen as the event that shaped the club’s fortunes. In ninety eight years of existence, Chelsea had won one domestic league title. Since the takeover, the trophy cabinet holds five more championships, numerous cups, two European titles and runners-up to a World title.
The transition is pretty evident; the message pretty clear. Sport and business now don’t just complement one another.
Sport is business.
The rumblings of this unlikely union could be felt in as early as the 1950s and 60s, when athletes were awarded with employment. Thus, we had the legendary footballer PK Banerjee employed at Eastern Railway as remuneration for his on-field toils. Hockey icon Leslie Claudius too wound up earning his wages from Bengal Nagpur Railway.
The year 1991 is a major year. It changed the way sport operated in the world. Even for India, it was a key period, because of the opening up of the economy. Businesses now had serious competition from foreign players, who could also invest in national companies, giving birth to the likes of Swaraj Mazda and Maruti Suzuki. India suddenly was thrust into the highest pedestals of global economy — newer businesses were set up, and existing ones expanded.
This sudden business boom naturally soon spilt over into the sporting arena, and football was once again an early beneficiary. The presence of Dempo SC, Salgaocar, Mahindra United and JCT Punjab in India’s premier football competition stand testament to the previous statement. The fact that Dempo SC is still India’s most successful modern football team, with five national titles, underlines the importance of business in sport. Others may argue that Bengaluru FC should be seen as India’s most successful team — two titles in the space of three years and an appearance in the AFC Cup final definitely augment their argument. But the successes for this nascent team would not have been possible without the backing of Parth Jindal, the steel tycoon whose Jindal Steel Works ploughed in money in their sporting venture. Traditional heavyweights Mohun Bagan and East Bengal too, have had to fall back on the financial muscle of breweries McDowell’s and Kingfisher, respectively.
1991, however, had bigger repercussions. Rupert Murdoch had been impressed by fellow Australian businessman Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket — an unprecedented glamourized version of the much maligned limited overs cricket. Coloured jerseys with brands on them, white balls, day-night matches — Packer’s brainchild effectively reinvented cricket and reestablished the dwindling audiences for the game.
Murdoch wanted to pull off something similar. His venturing into the field of television was not yielding the desired results. The media mogul, however, had an ace up his sleeve: a unique series of channels were launched, dedicated to sport, and a rival to the more established ESPN. Murdoch named his creation Sky Sports.
The problem was, his channels needed a product to market. English football at the time was still reeling from hooliganism. The quality of the sport was below par, prompting audiences to turn to cricket and rugby.
Murdoch, however, decided to gamble and dig into his coffers. He was insistent on finding a way to rebrand football in England and then across the world. Awash with cash, a new league was set up, known today as the Premier League. Murdoch’s gamble hinged on television rights — by far the most lucrative link between sport and businesses today, where the former advertises the latter.
Television rights of each sporting extravaganza are sold at exorbitant prices, running into billions. These gargantuan sums do not seem to deter broadcasters one bit. On the contrary, the cut throat competition spurs them on to snatch a deal before another broadcaster gets the rights. When Star India brings you live images of India taking on South Africa in Cape Town, or when Sony beams the Olympics to your homes, it may have spent a fortune on acquiring these broadcasting rights, but it stands to gain even more, thanks to the revenues it can generate through advertisements, which businesses and brands the world over make for the enormous audiences tuned in to these channels.
Sport and business are now intertwined in an unprecedented manner. Entrepreneurs are today tapping into massive sporting audiences which comprise a humongous market for their products, while their money itself takes sports to a whole new level.
Everyone, from Packer, to Murdoch, to the Glazers who own Manchester United, to John Henry of Fenway Sports — the Hollywood film ‘Moneyball’ was based on his team, the Boston Red Sox — all the way to the Ambanis, who run the Indian Premier League team Mumbai Indians as well as all of the Indian Super League, and Shah Rukh Khan, to Sanjiv Goenka, the Kolkata businessman who had stakes in ISL team ATK as well an IPL team for two years, have made lasting imprints on sport. Even politicians and rulers cannot shy away from the tantalizing amounts of money in sport today — former Thai Prime Minister Thaksina Shinawatra had stakes in Manchester City, while the Qatari royal family now effectively runs the French football league. The desire to earn a quick buck through sport has also seen high profile criminals — Lalit Modi, whose brainchild is the money spinning machine IPL, and Vijay Mallya, who ran a cricket team, two football teams and even a formula one team, would, for once, testify.
Therein lies the problem, purists would argue. To them, sport is still recreation, and the commercial onslaught has rooted out whatever purity sport had. There is too much riding on matches, primarily financially. In order to be a party to this windfall, many take to illegitimate means, harming the very essence of the game through which they make a living. For all its popularity, the Indian Premier League has been riddled with controversy after controversy, almost all of which seem monetarily motivated. The same could be said of the ‘calciopoli’ scandal which rocked Italian football in the last decade.
The money on offer has often even motivated athletes to resort to unfair means in order to sneak an advantage over rivals: Lance Armstrong, a hero to so many, had all his seven Tour De France titles stripped off after he admitted to consuming drugs that would boost his stamina. Russia has had numerous athletes put under the scanner, after mass doping allegations surfaced, and a massive controversy still drags on, with their Olympic participation in jeopardy.
Sport has lost its soul, the argument would continue. And it is not hard to see why many are of this opinion. Players across all sports now unwavering in their wage demands, and have unreal price tags attached to their name, drawing flak. Indeed, it is hard to see how one individual could cost over two hundred million Euros, and how Vijay Mallya (yes, him again) could spend fourteen crores of rupees on purchasing a hard hitting batsman for his cricket team while his airline and their workers faced an uncertain future. Sport was always a social event, revolving around the principles of sportsmanship and while that still remains central, the transformation into a money mania clearly did not go down well with a lot of people.
Having said that, sport itself, however, is as healthy as ever, and popular too — in India, almost all major sports have an established league. Children in the country today have a plethora of idols to look up to, from Virat Kohli to Sunil Chhetri, from PV Sindhu to Deepa Karmakar, from Sania Mirza to Geeta Phogat, from Abhinav Bindra to Vijender Singh — there is no shortage of inspiration. A sport like Kabaddi, with almost no urban penetration, has glued fans and investors all over the nation to the spectacle that unfolds when the players take to the mat — a pioneering example of an entire sport that established itself with urban capital.
Sport today may have lost the purists’ vote of confidence for selling itself off, but in the process, it achieved something far more important.
It survived. It thrived.
Images:
Roman Abramovich courtesy standard.co.uk
East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan courtesy dnaindia.com
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