Ahh, cricket. The age old sport that took way too long and, if you’re South Asian like me, what your dad put on the TV when there was nothing else to do. It’s too boring, too slow-paced, and too weird, right? Wrong! With the creation and huge success of the T20 format, cricket has become easier to watch and more digestible over the years. However, leagues utilizing this format of 20 overs per team (instead of the regular 50), have begun earning so much that they can borrow cricketers away from their national team purely because they pay more. Some cricketers, neglecting their own nations entirely, are being offered to play for year-round franchises. This does indeed beg the question: What is more valuable, the lucrativeness of franchise cricket, or the honor of representing the country you love? To answer this question, I’ll transport you to the origin of this question: the IPL.
During the early 2000s, cricketers were not making much money from the grueling tasks of playing several hours on end. In 2003, the first laid out form of T20s was played between English county teams when they did not have enough time to play a full 50 overs [1]. 2 years later, T20s were first played internationally between Australia and New Zealand, though at that point they were not taken seriously. With the growing popularity of this format, the International Cricket Council (ICC) finally decided to make a global tournament and the inaugural edition was thus played in 2007 [1]. There, India won the final against Pakistan to claim the first ever T20 World Cup trophy. Subsequently, Vice President Lalit Modi had an idea.
After this incredible win, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), following Modi’s genius idea, announced a franchise-based T20 tournament with teams named after Indian cities, where all the stars from around the world could play[2]. Soon, this idea and format began to make the BCCI enormous profits. The T20’s model dictates that half of sponsorships, ticket sales, broadcasting rights and merchandise sales went directly to the BCCI, while the rest was to be split evenly between all teams playing. These are not rookie numbers either, as brands like Vivo and Tata have paid $53 million and $40 million, respectively, for title sponsorships in 2021 and 2022 – TV ads alone bring in around $1 million per team! And still, this is nothing compared to their main stream of income – broadcasting rights. Sony had the rights for the first ten seasons, paying just under $1 billion for them, or $100 million per season. For the 11th-15th season, Star Sports paid just under $2 billion, more than 4 times the amount per season Sony paid. Even the player auctions from 2023-27 have been sold to Viacom18 for $2.8 billion. These amounts make it one of the most valuable sports leagues in the world [3]. The cash they have earned has helped the BCCI push other cricket boards around, forcing them to comply with making India play more. The power of the BCCI can be seen in Pakistan’s recent attendance to the 2023 Cricket World Cup in India, despite their shaky political relations, but that’s an issue for a different time.
After the development and success of the IPL, other countries realized they could replicate the model and subsequently made their own leagues (including Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL), the West Indies’ Caribbean Premier League (CPL), Pakistan’s Pakistan Super League (PSL), England’s Vitality Blast, and even America’s MLC). The majority of cricketing nations have made their own version, the most recent of which being South Africa (SA20) and the United Arab Emirates(ILT20). This is where the problem stems from, as the BBL happens in December, SA20 and the ILT20 happen in January, the PSL happens in February, the IPL happens in April-May, the Blast happens in July, the CPL and the Hundred happen in August, and rinse and repeat. This means that at least 7 months of the year are clogged up by various T20 leagues for cricketers to play in. You may be thinking: there’s no way any one person would have a contract to all of these, right? Well, prepare to be amazed.
You see, the advantage the IPL being the first of its kind was that it was, both literally and figuratively, ahead of the game. By the time other countries did the same, they were so profitable that they bought teams in other T20 leagues, two prime examples being the Mumbai Indians buying teams in the ILT20 (MI Emirates), SA20 (MI Cape Town) and MLC (MI New York), and the Kolkata Knight Riders buying teams in the ILT20 (Abu Dhabi Knight Riders), CPL (Trinbago Knight Riders) and MLC (Los Angeles Knight Riders). On these teams, the franchises have begun offering year-round contracts to play for them for as much as $5 million dollars (which is currently double what the best international cricketers are being paid), becoming their primary employer and establishing a role reversal – forcing the national team to ask the league if their player is free to play for them, and not the other way around. Even though certain players like Jason Roy, Jofra Archer and Pat Cummins have stood their ground against these contracts, the temptation of league cricket can be too much for some [4,5]. Just in the past 2 years, many have retired early from the international level to play in leagues like Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Kieron Pollard, Alex Hales and Dwaine Pretorius, while others like Trent Boult have taken the more subtle method of revoking their central contract with their board [6].
Ultimately, when it comes to franchise versus country, it would have to depend on the person. Take Mohammad Amir, for example, who was charged with match fixing and given a 5-year ban in 2011. He consequently has not played for Pakistan since the end of the 2019 CWC. Amir would rather play leagues because his relationship with his own national cricket board is in pieces. On the other hand, Alex Hales retired from international cricket at just 34 specifically to play leagues (even though he was a regular appearance in the English T20 team). The money and convenience of league cricket was better for Hales than playing for his country. Despite having retired young, Alex Hales has a long league career in front of him. He can turn to inspirations like Imran Tahir, who retired from international cricket in 2019 at 39, but continues to play in leagues including the CPL, where he recently captained Guyana to their first trophy in the league. Similar patterns exist internationally as well, like Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez, who both officially retired from their national teams at 41, and are now enjoying leagues as their international careers are done and dusted [6].
This gets even more complex when you think about how most international cricketers have families to provide for, which is a way that leagues would look more appetizing, but the honor and prestige of being one of the top cricketers in their country is also something that would plague their mind when making a decision. Overall, in the modern dilemma of League or Country, it simply depends on the person: what their values are, what they think about their nation, how committed to their fitness they are, and their desire to make an impact on the world.
Sources:
[1] https://www.britannica.com/sports/Twenty20-cricket
[2] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indian-Premier-League
[3]https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond-boundary-exploring-multifaceted-revenue-streams-srimoy-dey
Shaista Rameez • Oct 11, 2023 at 4:43 pm
Very well researched article. Great, detailed account of the topic.