5 reasons why we love the IPL

#3 City-based loyalty

A person who may not otherwise follow cricket, found himself supporting Mumbai Indians because he was a loyal Mumbaikar

Westerners who are familiar with the sporting leagues will tell you that these leagues are nothing without the loyal fan following the teams have. The loyalty increases by leaps and bounds when teams are linked to cities. Although the Indian domestic tournament (Ranji trophy) is also based on states, but adding a city level component augurs well for the metropolitan fan.

Take the case of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the USA and one would find teams from top cities like New York Nicks, Chicago Bulls & Los Angeles Lakers among others.

The creators of the IPL factored in this while designing the tournament and made city based teams. As a result, a person who may not otherwise follow cricket, found himself supporting Mumbai Indians because he was a loyal Mumbaikar. Similar was the case with the other IPL teams. Another level of loyalty was infused by the introduction of the concept of “Icon players”.

Indian stars like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh were given the status of icon players. So, if one did not belong to the cities representing an IPL team, he/she could still support a team based on these icon players.