Football’s rising popularity in cricket mad India

There’s no doubt when we call ourself a nation of cricket crazy people. A billion people line up to catch a glimpse of the nation’s so-called heroes and the same people don’t blink before lampooning the team. These polarised reactions prove our need for cricket and leave little room for anything else.

Over the past decade, we have witnessed a gradual change in the habits of the public, even though this may have been restricted to mostly urbane regions. Football has found its way in to television schedules and the sports section. Footballers are on hostel room walls and blades are ideal birthday gifts. Even the I-League is finding a viewership, albeit slowly, and stadiums are loving the occasional footfall. So clearly, we now have another sport, even though it’ll be a long time before we can call it our own.

India is ranked at 164 in the FIFA rankings and the can’t-find-eleven-people-in-a-billion-people jab just doesn’t die. But the youngsters are watching the globally broadcasted English Premier League to satiate their appetites of top drawer, well packaged football. If the I-league can promise that soon, certainly the viewer wouldn’t have a problem paying up for the good cause of domestic football.

In a survey some years back, Cricket topped the charts with WWE following close behind. This was changed when Football toppled WWE to find the second spot, but given that it was a ‘Sports’ list, the irony was lost on quite a few. Anyway, the following was certainly on a high. In the 2002 South Korean World Cup, the Asian contingent saw what a full stadium can do to the cash register and they capitalised on it. With TenSports making it big in India, the sub-continent suddenly awoke to 3 matches a day during the summer vacations. If anything was a masterstroke, this was it.

Post that, the Euro 2004 too saw an underdog take the title, further creating waves in the market. With the EPL creating a base on other days, football was gaining a foothold. The World Cup in Germany came and then came the Euro 2008. Football was still emerging, and even Pune FC took birth in 2007 which has now become a benchmark of sorts for all the clubs in the league, at least in the management aspect.

But on the other hand, football has forever been an emerging sport. It never really took off until quite recently when the cola giant Pepsi decided to ‘Change the Game’ and roped in star Ranbir Kapoor to catch the Indian imagination. They topped it with a grand finale with Didier Drogba and now telecom major Airtel is trying to follow it up with a tie up with Manchester United. In the past, Tata Tea had a similar tie up with Arsenal and that didn’t really have a visible end, and that is what is lacking. Even if it did culminate in finding capable youngsters, it didn’t promote them enough for it to trickle down to the fickle audience.

Now football academies have sprung up in every corner and youngsters are taking to the sport like never before, even though cricket hasn’t really dropped in popularity. But that has the cult status of the players to blame. What remains to be seen is if the current trend will actually end in football finally emerging as an option or will it just remain a potential alternative. Either way, the Indian League has a major role to play, and if the I-League continues to remain in shambles and the AIFF and IMG-Reliance do not figure a way out, we might as well ask the same question ten years from now.