Word: indianizing
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...reflected on how the gentleman's game of clipped lawns and breaks for tea and cucumber sandwiches was changing. A few days before, Thawani stunned the sports world by paying $612 million?11 times the previous price and the biggest deal in cricket history?for the TV rights to Indian cricket for four years. "India is the new cricket superpower," says Thawani in the Bombay office of Nimbus Communications, a Singapore-based sports-production firm of which he is chairman. "India now provides between 60% and 80% of world cricket revenues. The old powers like England or Australia...
...cradles of the game are increasingly overshadowed by India. In comparison with the Nimbus deal, TV rights to three years of English cricket went for $384 million last summer, to Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting. Nimbus' record-breaking offer is indicative of unimaginable sums of money that Indian cricket, with its vast and ever more affluent fan base, is able to attract. "The passion that India has for the game is greater than any other country has for any sport," says International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Malcolm Speed. "Factor in the billion-plus population and an economy growing...
...sport that American comedian Robin Williams memorably described as "baseball on valium" suddenly such big business? Because Indians don't find it dull at all. Cricket is the closest thing to a universal religion in a diverse nation that is home to a sixth of the world's population. Until the Indian TV market opened to private broadcasters in the early 1990s, however, its potential was untapped. A state-owned broadcaster, Doordashan, held a monopoly on TV rights, and "they used to give them away," groans Thawani. Today, interest in the sport is blossoming worldwide, making televised matches?along with...
...appealing to broadcasters and advertisers. "It's a lot of content," Speed says, "enough to fill a channel for days, and is a very valuable commodity for sponsors." Nike apparently agrees. Pawar tells TIME that the sneaker giant last month paid $45 million to have its logo stitched onto Indian players' sleeves...
...muscle lead to a situation where it is as dominant on the field as it soon will be in the game's finances? Possibly. But as he looks ahead to next year's World Cup in the West Indies, that's not something that Thawani worries about. "An Indian win is what the fans want," he says. Given what India would pay to see that, it's what cricket's new business leaders want...