India's Premiere Lalit

Once upon a time, there was a man who created a fantasy world of kings, super kings, knight riders, daredevils, royal challengers. It was an invention, a spectacle, a carnival dreamt out of thin air into a billion dollar enterprise of franchises, advertising, products, copyrights, spin-offs, licenses, syndication, television, cross-marketing. His name was not Lalit Modi and the world was not IPL. His name was Walt Disney and the world was the magic kingdom of Disneyland.

Mickey Mouse's market value is in the hundreds of millions, so is the Kolkata Knight Riders. Though one's a sport and the other a hand-drawn mouse, both follow the same business model -- an idea that enters the public imagination and people support it with stuff. The stuff could be movies, sporting games, a T shirt, a pub, a pen, a fan following, anything. To a three year-old anywhere, Mickey Mouse is real. Three years ago, Daredevils was just a word. Today, some argue, its 400 million dollars of something way more than a bunch of people in Delhi in red polyester. The IPL is our magic kingdom and Lalit Modi our Walt.u00a0

Yet, as everyone's watching the IPL (through some rights syndication nexus, I'm told one can even watch it in Iceland), I wonder how little is left to sell.

The players, obviously (thereby creating the valuation of the teams), most of the space on their clothing, most of the patches on the field to the point possibly of the field not looking green. The boundary hoardings are digital so as to allow for multiple advertisers, (this year, ingeniously, there's also a foam-ish boundary rope that reads Aircel, a wireless internet provider). The scoreboard now flashes sponsors. If you time advertisements, in season 2 it was after every ball (a long way from the end of every over. That's before club cricket -- when the boring nations play). In season 3, it's three ads between every ball. That requires an attention span of 7 seconds- perfect for modern sport. And modern life. It's also about the time we give to listening to a thought before looking at our cell phone for some development (and that development is most likely, more IPL advertising for SMS contests to win a car, sneakers, a fridge, a donkey et al). If this rate of advertising existed for the 5 day game, (assuming some retired people still watch that format), you would be subject to 61,700 ads per game which is what an Indian person in 1991 watched in their lifetime.

Finally, we have outdone the Americans at something sacred to them -- capitalism. By 3 minutes and 53 seconds. Super-Bowl and the NBA Finals, both privately owned franchise sporting events with the highest marketing and ad spends in the world, allow for at least 4 minutes of uninterrupted sport before Apple or Pepsi enter your living room.u00a0

The young celebrity commentators who aren't cricketers are tragically made to wear sponsored clothing which appears, at best, to be made from gift wrapping material. And one feels tragic when they have to say "Citi Moment of the Match" or "Lays catch of the hour" or, without irony, "The new home of Deccan is Navi Mumbai".
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The marketing machine has made sure they dance in the promo video and it isn't long before I am sure we can buy and sell them in some deal with E Bay India (although that, by the penal code, might constitute slavery).

Of course, the much-public bloodbath over the cream of buying and selling -- the TV and media rights negotiations, have I'm sure, caused a generation of TV executives to flee and become Himalayan yoga devotees at the sight of Mr Modi and his IPL negotiators.u00a0u00a0

There have been some media arguments about whether we're giving up our essential Gandhian socialism by being lavish in our IPL spending. It's the wrong question. Woody Allen, when asked how could the Holocaust happen, replied, "Given the nature of human beings, the question to ask is, why it doesn't happen more often."

Our question to ask is, looking at the way we're obsessed with consumerism, the real achievement isu00a0 how they managed to keep this nation socialist so long.

I really wanted to go to an IPL game but was terrified that while I was watching the 12 minutes of cricket between dancing Uzbek girls, trumpet playing, acrobats, celebrities peddling their latest, someone would perhaps auction my back to put up a small Kurkure hoarding.

Anuvab Pal is a Mumbai-based playwright and screenwriter. His plays in Mumbai include Chaos Theory and screenplays for Loins of Punjab Presents (co-written) and The President is Coming. He is currently working on a book on the Bollywood film Disco Dancer for Harper Collins, out later this year.u00a0 Reach him at www.anuvabpal.com