What's wrong with commercialisation?
Ashish Deshpande (ashishdeshpande@hotmail.com)
I can never understand why criticism of commercialisation is so absorbed into our blood cells.
Cricket is by far the most most non-commercialized sport in the world, if you take viewers to players ratio, or revenue to games ratio.
A Formula 1 driver makes about 2.3 million dollars, Nascar drivers make around one million dollars, the
average basketball player on the North American circuit gets a salary of around 2.5 million, in baseball that figure is one million, in American football it is 1.5 million dollars.
Even average basketballers on the NCAA circuit, that is, the American College Basketball circuit, makes a quarter of a million dollars. And all this is possible only due to corporate sponsorship, which supports the game.
This money has improved stadiums and arena standards, television coverage standards, and uplifted these respective games to the highest levels achievable.
The crux of my argument is that Indians and the world cricketing community should not have communal attitudes towards sponsorship events, and corporate money in cricket.
Commercial wellbeing ensures peace and prosperity, be it in a developing nation, or a game.
Cricket will be played in far more places, like the proposed Disney Cricket Venture in Florida, and the key driver will be corporate sponsorship.
The more the money in the game, the more the players, especially the youngsters, get to benefit.
One day, with the help of corporate sponsorship, India too will have a domestic circuit as popular and watched as the NCAA basketball in America.
So tell us what you think of this column
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