IPL: A Black Swan Event

Just a thought……Does IPL come under the umbrella of Black Swan Events? or Is it a scripted tournament, if yes than I must say it is better than even most of our Bollywood movies (to avoid any controversies I will not be talking about the latter here). Well according to me it is a Black Swan event the reason being:

IPL 1 Rajasthan Royals won the trophy. (At no point in time one could have said that they will emerge as winner)

Then in IPL 2 last year’s toppers came down and last year’s bottom two teams were put in the final.

The sudden shift of IPL from India to SA in season 2 (but everything was managed in such a way that it felt like they knew it was going to happen…U cannot make an event of such a big scale happen in about a few weeks time).

In IPL 3 when everything was going in favour of IPL, it was struck by a controversy (I think we all are well aware about it THE LALIT MODI CASE). Now the question in front of us is that, will IPL still enjoy the massive support it had managed to get in past 2 years?

And last but not the least: Will Lalit Modi regain his lost position? We here at Brandistics support Mr. Lalit Modi and hope to see him back in action. Because according to us: If IPL is ‘Manoranjan ka baap’ then Mr Modi is ‘IPL ka baap’. Well whatever the result may be we think it will again be a random one, which will come as a blow to us.

We have already seen in our previous posts that IPL stands way ahead among all the other sporting events. Now let us see how this greatness of IPL has lead to growth of various things with respect to India. They are:

Emergence of Brand India (As it is promoting itself as a game played by the Indian mass. Ad campaigns like Saare Jahan se Achcha are helping it to achieve the milestone)

Emergence of a business within cricket, thus making it a very lucrative option for Indian business houses who are ready to invest in sports.

At the game level, it has provided the young talented players of India, a stage to showcase their talent (I think this is the main reason why most of us are seeing cricket as a career).

It has promoted cricket as a commodity rather than a brand. This has brought down the emotional attachment of people with the game as a whole, but it is exploiting there emotion by targeting different states/parts of India by forming different teams representing different parts of India.

It has lead to the emergence of cricket as a competitor to football and basketball.

With this we will end this post. Stay tuned.....

Lalit Modi - Man behind the Brand IPL

Well everyone remembers the climax scene of the movie GURU ,where the witty businessman gets away with all charges just by the dialogues and the thought that whatever this man is doing is for the betterment of the country as a whole. But, this is no real life. Not in the case of, Mr. Lalit Modi the man who idealized the brand IPL and has worked diligently for 5 years now to make it to the list of most innovative global brands.

Lalit Modi, a great visionary who rose from the backdrop of his bad college days, to be a part of around 5 businesses that also include the mega-brand IPL has been asked to clear his image of all charges in the governing council meeting of the BCCI. This is what politics does to some bright careers in business. Personally, (being a bit positive and with all respect that I have for the brilliant mind in Lalit Modi) I think that though the man is minting money, so are the other business houses in India - now majorly because he went against the government to hold IPL out of India the last season in South Africa, does not allow everyone to fire all guns at him. He surely is involved in the charges raised on him, but I would list some brilliance of the man that cannot be overshadowed by the criticism he receives.

• The vision to take IPL global through international partnerships with Google-Youtube.
• His strategy to keep the IPL alive even after the season by organizing international off season matches to keep the audience engaged and boost the brand recall of IPL.
• The inspiration that he imbibed in every youngster in India who dreams to be the next generation Sachin Tendulkar,Kapil Dev or a Saurav Ganguly. He provided the platform for players like Asnodkar, R. Khan who could not even dream of earning such huge sums from their cricketing abilities. IPL inspired them to believe in themselves and put in their hard work so that they get the chance to play for their nation and this dream has been realized by players like Manpreet Gony, Murali Vijay, Ravinder Jadeja who have got their bright chances.
• Lalit Modi provided us the ultimate product mix of Cricket + Bollywood which has no other match in terms of entertainment value delivered.
• And, ultimately to take on the other commercial sport events of the west like the American Baseball , the English Premier League or may be other soccer leagues in the Europe. As, the growth rate of IPL in the sports industry clearly poses a major threat to these leagues in the coming future. So, he is making India shine on the world map as ultimately it is the INDIAN premier league and an INDIAN running it successfully for the last year( which has now been acknowledged by all management thinkers worldwide).

Yes, the ethics are necessary in the business you do - but such an attitude by the government raises questions on the sustainability of such brilliant innovations. The kind of environment that has now been created by the government with their "media partners" surely leads to degradation of the brand and the vision of the man seems to be all dark.

To end up probably my last post of this IPL season, I would quote Sachin on his 37th birthday. Probably, the only hope who will save this commercialization of cricket through hi true cricketing skills.
Sachin in a recent interview said -

"At the end of the day the competitiveness on the field is what the audience want to see, what happens off the field doesn't effect the cricket on the field and Indian cricket is strong enough to cross all these hurdles".

It is also true that no such controversies can ever stop an IPL fan to watch the master or any of their favorite player play on the field.