Author: Prantik Mazumdar

International cricket teams compete for national pride and personal glory. While that should be the primary motivation, let’s not forget that international cricketers are professionals and have a plethora of choices to monetise their limited 10-15 year-long shelf life. For the upcoming World Test Championships (WTC) final, India and Australia are competing for US$1.6M in prize money. That is 40 percent of the winner’s cheque at the previous ODI World Cup that was held in England in 2019, and the same as the T20 World Cup in 2022 that England won in Australia by defeating Pakistan. To compare the effort-to-reward…

It’s already been a week since Ravindra Jadeja’s heroics gifted MS Dhoni and company their fifth IPL title, but the world of private equity is already plotting the future of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and other international T20 competitions. Two weeks ago, Tiger Global, a $51B fund that has minted over 220 unicorns in its portfolio – including backing companies like Flipkart, Zomato, Ola, Delhivery, and Dream11 in India – expressed interest in investing $40 Million in the Rajasthan Royals franchise, valuing it at $650M. Rajasthan’s journey in IPL 2023 may have abruptly stopped in the 66th match of…

The Tatas will plant 147,000 trees thanks to the 294 dot-balls that were bowled during the four play-off games in IPL 2023. When most brands sponsor a property or an event, they usually commit most of their budgets for the sponsorship alone, and hardly have much left for activating the sponsorship. What’s the difference, you may ask? When a brand enters into a sponsorship agreement, they typically sign a contract to have their brand logo or marketing collateral displayed on banners, hoardings or apparel. To activate that sponsorship would mean to creatively engage the target audience in a meaningful…

When Sai Sudharsan walked into bat this evening at 67-1 after MS Dhoni’s lightening glove work stopped Shubman Gill from potentially racing to his fourth ton of this IPL, I told my son that the Gujarat Titans had missed a trick by not sending Vijay Shankar up the order tonight. My statement was based on the fact that three nights ago, Sai decided to “retire” himself out because he couldn’t step on the gas in the final overs. He was only the 14th player in the history of the IPL to do so. He was scoring a decent strike-rate of…

By Sunday night, either the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) would have won the coveted IPL title for the fifth time, or the Gujarat Titans would become only the third franchise (after CSK and Mumbai Indians) to win consecutive titles, and the first to do so in their first two seasons of existence. The drama-filled, entertainment-led cricketing festival spanning over 59 days would complete its 16th season. The ten participating franchises are now valued at a little more than $1 Billion on average. The IPL’s media rights alone have seen a meteoric rise in value – from $1.05B in the first…

Did we just witness the most attractive and impactful of the 87 centuries scored in the history of the IPL over 16 seasons? Before this season, no one from the Gujarat Titans had scored an IPL ton. All of a sudden, Shubman Gill, the Prince of Indian cricket, all of 23 years old, has scored three of them in his last four innings – 101 (58) at a strike-rate of 174.13, 104* (52) at a strike-rate of 200, and 129 (60) at a strike-rate of 215. Remember that before the first ton, he was stranded on 94 not out from…

Finally, after about 30 months, the Indian cricket team has an official kit partner with performance-oriented apparel and training gear as part of its core business, and the proprietary technology to manufacture it. On May 23, the BCCI announced that Adidas had signed a five-year deal to become the official kit sponsor of the Indian cricket team. As part of this agreement, Adidas will be the sole supplier of all the “match, training and travel gear” for both the men’s & women’s teams across the international sides, India A and B units, the U-19 squads, and all coaches and staff.…

Last night, the 21-year-old Yashasvi Jaiswal created history by scoring the fastest 50 in the history of the IPL (13 balls) and the second-fastest half-century in the history of the T20 format, following the footsteps of Yuvraj Singh, another legendary left-hand bat. Yashasvi’s hunger and grit-laden journey is the story of the IPL, where dreamers who do, can turn their ambitious fantasies into reality. A young boy who grows up in poverty in the state of Uttar Pradesh, moves to Mumbai to chase his dreams; sells pani puris by day and sleeps in a crowded tent at Azad Maidan to…