Book Launch: The Business of Cricket - The Story of Sports Marketing in India

Landmark, Nungambakkam on Sunday played host to the launch of the book The Business of Cricket : The Story of Sports Marketing in India. It is co-authored by Vijay Santhanam and Shyam Balasubramanian, the authors of If Cricket is Religion, Sachin is God. While the duo’s first book helped bust many myths about Sachin Tendulkar not being a match-winner, their second one is expected to provide an insight into the evolution of sports marketing in India.

The event was presided over by Ayaz Memon, renowned cricket writer and analyst, and V.Krishnaswami, a consultant with the Delhi Daredevils (he blogs for them here). The discussion began with Santhanam recounting how cricketers endorsing brands has become a big business these days with every single Indian cricketer having a brand value attached with him. It was a far cry from the 60s and 70s in terms of the money on offer, the customer base in the country etc. when Farokh Engineer went into brand endorsement. All changed post-1991 with more and more brands entering the market and competing for a small place in the mind of the consumer.

Santhanam, Memon and Krishnaswami at the book launch

The discussion then shifted to the IPL and about how it has redefined the business of cricket. There was a short question and answer session in the end and yours truly took the opportunity to ask Memon whether the abundance of money in IPL would embolden young players to go the Ravindra Jadeja and Manish Pandey ways (negotiating deals with other franchises). Memon expressed that the current young generation of cricketers cannot be expected to go through the same rigour and hardship that players like Sehwag, Dhoni, the Pathans etc went through. It is akin to a father not wanting his son to go through the same ordeals that he did to come up in life. It is characteristic of a societal mindset in general when one person sees himself as relative to another (as happened in the Pandey controversy when he felt shortchanged on seeing Saurabh Tiwary getting a million dollar deal from RCB). Krishnaswami added that most Indian youngsters these days talk about real estate prices. A solution, Memon expressed, was to have a mentoring system in place at the National Cricket Academy (NCA).