Boom in Indian sports leagues fails to establish sustainable elite sports culture

In spite of a long historical tradition of both cricket and hockey, India has largely failed to make the international medal podiums in these, in India, very popular sports. The same goes for other Olympic sports, in which India was never anywhere near the world standards. In short, the standard in sport has remained poor in a country that boasts of a population of over a billion people.

To turn this around, numerous discussions, seminars, programmes and projects to help raise the standard in Olympic disciplines were initiated but have failed to deliver. Various schemes of the Indian government yielded no result either. With this as the backdrop, well-known sports broadcaster Star Sport-ESPN launched the Premier Hockey League in India in 2005. This marked the beginning of the league culture in Indian sport.

The success of the hockey league inspired officials and promoters in other disciplines to launch leagues in their respective sports. The past ten years, India has seen a boom in the formation of professional leagues with sports like cricket, football, badminton, tennis and kabaddi entering the commercial sports scene. But with an exception in hockey, the experiment has failed to take advantage of its huge potential in India.

Due to the hockey league, many new faces, especially from India’s rural belt, came up and went on to represent India in international matches. But in other sports already established names play in the league defeating the very purpose of the leagues. A few individual players in say tennis and badminton are getting richer by the day but there has been no growth in the sport.

Corruption and political overtones

Incepted in 2008, the Indian Premier League was launched with the idea of giving young players a much-wanted platform and to popularise the game. But the League, or the IPL as it is popularly known, has also been about numerous controversies. 

Every season a newer controversy crops up to bring disrepute to the players, officials and to the game itself. The launch of IPL itself was controversial, as the Indian Cricket Board had taken the step to crush the Indian Cricket League, floated by Zee TV Network under former India captain Kapil Dev’s guidance.

There were reports of gross financial mismanagement, match-fixing, corruption, doping allegations and rave party scandals. The matter reached the Indian courts and some cases are still being pursued. The Indian cricket board had to even sack League chairman Lalit Modi following charges of financial mismanagement and fraud.

Political overtones also marred the League when Sri Lankan players were not allowed to play in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu because of a ban on them by the State Government.

The state is predominately a Tamil region (natives of the state are called Tamilians). Sri Lanka also has a sizeable number of Tamilians and the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mrs. J Jayalalitha has been demanding a separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka. She claims that Sri Lankan Tamils have long been living as refugees in and outside camps in Tamil Nadu. As a mark of protest to the Sri Lankan Government, she has never allowed Sri Lankan players to play in the state of Tamil Nadu. 

Participation of Pakistani cricket players has also turned into a big political battle as far as the league is concerned. The Pakistani players did play in the first edition of the league in 2008. But thereafter they have not been allowed. The right-wing Hindu political parties do not allow them to visit India, especially Mumbai where they are in majority.  

This year, the matches at some of the venues had to be shifted following massive protests in view of severe drought in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra, a bastion of Indian cricket.

Different franchise teams buy the players for the League in an auction. And price tags for star players run into millions of dollars. Therefore, established players remain in the fray, beating the purpose of throwing up budding talent. Besides the established stars, sponsors, marketing companies and organisers make money. But the sport at large does not gain much. Controversial wrestling league The PWL or wrestling league was launched last year with much fan fare. But even before the competition could take off there was a rift between two partners – Pro-Sportify and SportySolutionz. The two companies parted ways and finally Pro-Sportify alone somehow managed to put up the show in collaboration with the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) that had some of the top wrestlers from around the world participating. Due to a lack of organisational skill and experience, there were several faux pas. The fixtures and venues were changed as and when the organisers liked causing inconvenience to the wrestlers. The League was held in December last but several wrestlers have still not been paid their fees. Many wrestlers from the USA, Argentina and several other countries have not been issued the promised income tax deduction certificates from ProSportify. They fear punitive action in their own respective countries. The matter is going to be in courts soon if corrective measures are not taken.

The wrestlers were drafted for the league after a contract signed between them and franchise team owners with WFI as a guarantor. 

Many vendors who supplied wares in and outside the venues are yet to be paid, too. Finally, the Wrestling Federation had no choice but to terminate its contract with ProSportify on April 16.

In its notice to ProSportify, WFI accused ProSportify of non-payment to players, non-payment of prize money, non-payment to technical officials, interference in technical conduct in the first edition of the league last year.

League and court battles

The ownership of the badminton league is already being fought in court while in the Indian Super League (ISL), the football league faced a major controversy when the ISL regulatory commission banned popular club FC Goa for ‘indiscipline’ and imposed a hefty fine of US$ 1.6 million on the club owners. The club had boycotted the final prize distribution ceremony last year after some players had made allegations against the match officials.

The FC Goa management had made adverse comments in the media disputing the result of league’s final last year. The team co-owner Dattaraj Salgaocar claimed that two penalties given against his team in the last five minutes changed everything. "It was a terrible referring, one-sided and it was already decided to give away the match to Chennai team," he alleged.

Amidst all this, India remains at a low 162nd spot in FIFA rankings. So much so that a nation with huge population pool to nurture talent is often beaten by much smaller nations like Nepal and war-struck Afghanistan.

Interestingly, European and German clubs are far more popular in India than the Indian clubs. This is mainly due to live telecast of the FA Cup, the Bundesliga and other international fixtures. It has produced thousands of armchair football fans. But the sport has vanished from the masses. Most of the schools in India do not even have a playing field. And wherever there are fields they are dotted with cricket players. Hardly anyone plays football. The standard, therefore, remains low.

During the league seasons, there is always a fight between clubs or franchises of the league and the national coaches. While the franchises want players for League fixtures, coaches demand that they be in a coaching camp for national duty. The fight goes on with the standard of the game static.

Hockey league successful

The main idea of the hockey league was to revive the sport and get spectators back to the game that India once ruled.

Barring a few initial hiccups, the experiment proved successful. It offered a golden chance for Indian players to play with the best in the world. Top teams like Holland and Australia were not keen to tour India to play a weak national side. But champion players like Jamie Dwyer, Florian Fuchs and Tobias Hauke among others played with their Indian counterparts in their respective clubs. It gave Indians a valuable exposure at home and helped them overcome their fear of best players in the world. 

The broadcasters also introduced new technology that made the sport much more interesting and spectator friendly.

After failing to qualify for the Beijing Olympics and coming in last at the Games in London, the Indian team re-emerged as a force largely due to the League. It won the gold medal at the last Asian Games in Incheon and added a bronze medal defeating Holland in the play-off match of the FIH Hockey World League Final last December in Raipur, India. This was India’s first medal at a major FIH event after 33 years. The team is now aiming at a podium finish in the Rio Olympics.

The international hockey federation (FIH) also seems to have taken a cue from the hockey League in India and has decided to launch a new annual global home-and-away league in 2019.

Other leagues in tennis and kabaddi, an indigenous sport, are immensely popular and have remained largely controversy-free.

India: fertile field for sponsors

The main reason why leagues have stayed in India is their commercial success. TV still remains a number one source of entertainment for a majority of the Indians – hence millions of eyeballs. This wide audience makes a fertile field for sponsors of which there is no dearth in India. Development of sport and athletes is pushed way behind as national and international business houses milk the sporting cow – India.

But leagues will stay in India. It is big business, especially in cricket. No doubt there are millions of poor in India. But then there are millions of wealthy and super rich too. And they are willing to put money in leagues. And with millions of viewers, the leagues will remain a commercial success. That people do not actively take part in sport is another story.

For an outsider it is a big mystery why India does not do better in global sport, especially with such a big pool to grow from and when Indians are so keen on these leagues. There are several reasons for this.

Young children need heroes to emulate. Unfortunately, India has not done well in football on the global stage for a very long time. Media also does not give much space to football and prefers cricket. Therefore, kids are not inspired enough to play football. Unless a large number of that wide pool plays, world beaters will not emerge. Therefore, hockey and cricket leagues will never turn India into a sporting nation even though they are big commercial successes.

To excel in sport, Indians have to play. Sadly, that is not happening. Whether it is due to a lifestyle syndrome, lack of facilities and infrastructure or legacy – or all of them put together is hard to tell. Only a billion Indians can answer it.