IPL: Cricket Sold Out

If you thought buying a flat or a car were your top priorities you were pathetically wrong. You just missed a golden opportunity. An opportunity of buying lively kicking boisterous and thundering cricketers of international quality.

Thanks to a bold new marketing initiative of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) the top 75 international cricketers came under the auction hammer at a five star hotel in Mumbai on that historic day of February 20, 2008 amidst high drama glamour and national media hype. Cricketers were bided bargained and bought. The prices offered could have been a bit of a disappointment for you, but if you have the dough and the daring you are the boss.

Late in 2007 the BCCI, in an apparent attempt to neutralize the rival formation of Indian Cricket League (ICL), announced the new Twenty20 cricket format under Indian Premier League (IPL) dividing India into 8 franchisees-Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta), Chennai (erstwhile Madras), Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Mohali-and throwing them open for outright sale. Top business tycoons, industrialists and film stars of India bought these territories for astronomical prices. So, eight clubs were formed and the richest cricket board of the world got even more richer.

Now, these eight clubs naturally wanted to rope in the best cricketers possible for their respective clubs since finally cricket had to be played. So the great single day auction was arranged. All of the buyers got together and quoted the prices as per their preferences and the product...sorry...cricketer quality. Every cricketer was given a base price representing his present standing and market performance. Superstars namely Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag were declared icons allowing them to command higher prices than the highest registered in their respective clubs.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, riding on his Twenty20 World Cup triumph, commanded the highest price of $1.5 million (60 millions in Indian rupee) nearly four times of his base price of $ 400,000. The only non-Indian cricketer to cross the million dollar mark was Andrew Symonds of Australia-definitely for his all round and controversial abilities. In a country of millions of crazy cricket fans you stand to gain only from any controversy you can afford or arrange. Symonds had a razing one with quintessential Indian Harbhajan Singh and benefited tremendously. Other accomplished Australians like Gilchrist and Brett Lee commanded prices just under a million dollar.

One highlight of this redefining-cricket marketing strategy of the BCCI was that instead of only making the already rich Indians dirty rich it had benefited cricketers from all the cricket nations of the world.

Well, the present sale of cricketers seems to be for one year only. So you can still have your opportunity in 2009 and you can safely hope for normal buyers' bonanza like buying two and getting the third free of your choice or buying one and getting fifty percent discount on the second of your choice and so on. But, for the moment, you will have to make do with the forbidding sign of 'Cricket Sold Out'.