‘The Fixtures come thick & fast..’

As the name of the blog signifies, I am far far away from the land of Football (the one you actually play with your feet). That means I am not in the land of football, but in the ‘Land of Cricket’. Incidentally, both of these are British sports (games?) but one took to our brown skins like fish took to water. Once upon a time. I was having this interesting conversation where we actually came to a conclusion (this wasn’t the interesting part, though). It seems that a society/country ‘takes’ to a sport when it succeeds at it. That is, success is the predecessor of acceptance. How quaintly British, isn’t it?
Well, India got some success at the Cricket World Cup in 1983. When I say ‘some’, I mean that the Indian contingent won the cup (and the hearts of millions) but nobody actually believed they would, before they actually did. And there was probably some concern as to what had happened, and why, and whereabouts. Strangely, India is now the ‘leader’ in the sport, fuelled by mad marketing money. It’s quite surreal actually, given that the so-called ‘Gentleman’s sport’, unsullied by the hooliganism associated with football in England, is the very inception of sport related hooliganism in India.

Here the theme emerges: while India will probably need to ‘succeed’ in the world of football before the sport becomes properly grass-roots, the fan base of the game is exploding in the country. The first indicator is the number of shirts (kits) being donned by Indians. Increasingly, there are folk who buy kits EVERY year. For India, it is not only a costly proposition, it is also difficult bearing the badge of a club, as fealties change with every change of championship table leaders. Aggravating the fact is that most members of this community of football fans are relatively young, in the 18-34 age bracket.

What I am trying to say is not new: the Premier League is such a global phenomenon that it has broken this Chicken-Egg syndrome in sport marketing. Commercial success for the sport might, for the first time, manifest without actually going through the cycle of success at the football world stage in India. My point is this: in this context, the phenomenon is SPECIFIC to India.

The whole Chinese League hullabaloo signifies the point. While China is trying to go through the success->commercial success route (and so is the US), making the marketing cycle longer, India is ready NOW. In 5 years, as the said bracket of fan gains financial independence, they will be hungry for Premier League Clubs and their openness to attract them. The question then: is the Premier League ready?