History Of Cricket Board's Rags To Riches

Today, Board of Control for Cricket in India ("BCCI") is the richest Board in the world with over $2 billion in assets and International Cricket Board that governs the cricket in the world looks up to BCCI for any major decisions. ICC avoids scheduling international cricket to the extent possible, during March to May each year due to the powerful Indian Premier Leauge ("IPL") assembling international players in India to play for this league and each player getting paid handsomely for their participation.

The India cricket went through three periods, namely 1923-1983, 1983 to 2008 and the current period beginning 2008 to 2025. Initially, BCCI was poor and can't even afford to pay much for the cricketers traveling overseas. There is a history of the Indian cricketers getting paid just $5 per week as allowance and asked to travel by Cargo ship when they traveled to the West Indies. During this period, revenues of BCCI was less and barely meeting ther requirements of how to enhance the interest in cricket. State Boards were looking up to BCCI to promote cricketers. Doordharsan was charging BCCI to telecast the cricket test matches in India for a fee of Rs 5,00,000 for each test.

This position changed dramatically when the Indian team won the world cup in 1983 under the leadership of Kapil Dev. This team was given a grand reception when they returned to India and cricket became the major sports in the streets. Each State Board started training cricketers from their territiory to introduce the players at the national level. Initially, the funding came from the wealthy individuals. Later, BCCI realized that television rights are a major source of revenues and started approaching the private media companies to telecast cricket in India and worldwide. Many overseas media companies started competing as the economy opened up in India in 1991.

In the meantime, some strategic thinkers started managing the BCCI with long-term vision. Despite some challenges in financial improprietaries, BCCI started growing heavily. It started hosting international touranments like World Cup in India while One Day International (a match played 50 overs each by two teams) became popular. BCCI's revenue started growing so mucy from both from the stadium revenues as well as media rights. Cricket reached even villages all over India and there were training program started for bowlers and batters. Even those who were injured playing cricket were treated in a centralized facility to make them fitter quickly. The cricketers began to understand the importance of fitness quickly.

Franchise cricket was existing only in Australia and England at that time with no such franchise cricket existed anywhere else in the world. That is when Twenty20 ("T20") was becoming popular. India was late into this format of cricket with none of the Indian players familiar with this format. That is when BCCI came up with the idea of forming Indian Premier Leaque ("IPL") to make the international players to be bid in auction in 2008. This auction took place sometimes in India and sometimes overseas. Initially 8 major cities were assigned a team each (later became 10) and wealth individually were bidding to own the teams in these cities. The frachises together were valued initially for $720 million, and this value growing significantly each year. Almost all international medias were competing to bid to get television rights and initial 10 year media rights were sold over $1.05 billion in 2008 and later 5 year media rights were sold for $2.5 billion in 2018 and the recent 5 year media rights were sold for over $6 billion in 2023. Overall value of IPL brand reached $12 billion mark in 2023.

In comparison, the nearest networth of Cricket Australia is worth only $82.25 million when compared to BCCI's net worth of $2.35 billion. Indian cricket reached a stage where there is no decision that can be made worldwide without consulting BCCI. Indian team's participation in international cricket is essential for any competition to succeed with Indian team following in each city worldwide is huge.

 

The present government came to power much after IPL started in 2008. Jagmohan Dalmiya was the one who led BCCI in his first term with a lot of negotiating power even before IPL. After that Srinivasan had a lot of negotiating power also due to IPL, a financial success. The cricketers getting involved in betting were past history and all of them were punished with a total ban. The cricketers now are not even allowed to interact with anyone except the hotel staff during their stay before playing Test, ODI and T20 cricket. Even two IPL teams were banned for two years.

I agree Mr. Shah is not a cricketer but such prestigious position is always contested with a lot of political power. There was a time when Pawars were the leaders who had a lot of clout just like Shukla. But most cricketing decisions are taken by the Selectors, and cricket advisory board consist of cricketers and current BCCI President is Roger Binny. Officially BCCI is an autonomous body and technically not under Sport Federation of India and hence their financial results are independently audited after the Supreme Court ordered it. In the intial period, I understand that there were some financial irregularities and there were placed under a rug to avoid any bad reputation to the BCCI.

Note: There is a report that the Selectors are ignoring some high-performing cricketers due to bias but it will always be there as in a big country like India, only 15-16 players can only be selected in a team.