India shows cricket the money

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MUMBAI, India -- Teams with names like the Delhi Daredevils. Tycoons and Bollywood stars bidding against each other for "icon" players. Teen-age bowlers turned into millionaires overnight. Television contracts worth hundreds of millions.Suddenly awash in new money, Corporate India is shaking up the tradition-bound gentleman's game of cricket.The new Indian Premier League has raised more than $1.7 billion before a single googly has been bowled. And the new league -- its first season opens April 18 -- bears all the corporate hallmarks of professional sports in the West.For television rights, the Sony Entertainment Television-World Sports Group spent $918 million on a 10-year deal for league games, lured by a cricket-watching TV audience that has sometimes equaled the combined populations of North America and Western Europe. Bidding for the eight franchises brought in another $723 million."It's the biggest reality show," said Lalit Modi, the boyish American-educated millionaire who is the league's chairman and driving force, in an interview on Indian television. "It has the power of Bollywood and cricket combined."With the country's economy booming, Indian tycoons have been snapping up steel, car and mining companies around the world, putting the country on the map of international business.Now, many are spending their newfound wealth on that favorite tycoon's bauble: a sport team.Industrialist Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, paid $111 million for the Mumbai franchise."What's happening in cricket is reflecting the sweeping change that is coming over India," said Ayaz Memon, sports editor of the business daily DNA. "India is a powerhouse. It really shows our growing economic clout."Traditionally, cricket has been dominated by nation-to-nation competitions featuring five-day test matches or one-day bouts.The brash new league plans to add a little Indian spice, shortening the games to about three hours for busy modern Indians and persuading them to root for local as well as national teams.Players will take part in a six-week season of Twenty20 cricket, a compressed version of the game started in Britain in 2003 that restricts teams to 20 overs, or series of legal deliveries by the bowler.Promoters of the new league promise "high-octane" play in an "adrenalin-packed LIVE family entertainment format."That includes new or improved stadiums featuring corporate boxes, big-screen entertainment and even cheerleaders.It's a far cry from the days of languid youths in white trousers and sleeveless sweaters playing on a simple oval of green grass.The league hopes to create a uniquely Indian fusion of first-class cricket and Bollywood glamour, capitalizing on the blanket coverage that cricket gets from the scores of newspaper, TV stations and Web sites in India's thriving media.That pairing was on view at the league's first player auction recently.Players, tycoons and movie actors crowded into a five-star hotel for nine hours of frenzied haggling over some of the world's top players.When they emerged, they had spent about $40 million on 77 Indian and international players.India national team captain Mahendra Dhoni will get $1.5 million for a 44-day season. Ishant Sharma, the longhaired 19-year-old fast bowler who is the emerging star of the Indian team, fetched $950,000, not including product endorsements. Australia's Brett Lee got $900,000.The bidders were a who's who of the new Indian plutocracy, from flamboyant airline magnate Vijay Mallay to ubiquitous Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan."This is an incredible opportunity," Khan said."The economics of this country has changed. India is no longer on the threshold, it has walked through the door," he said.The Indian economy has been growing at 8 percent to 9 percent a year, creating scores of new billionaires and a thriving middle class.Government economic reforms have opened up once-closed industries to investment and competition, creating a host of new airlines, cell-phone providers, banks and insurance companies that battle fiercely for business in a potential market of 1.1 billion people."You've privatized airlines and look where that's gone; you've privatized telecoms and look where that's gone," bubbled actress Preity Zinta, who showed up at the player auction in a blaze of TV lights to help bid on players for her Mohali franchise.Purists are appalled.Opposition politician Sharad Yadav denounced the player auction as a "vulgar display of wealth," and Bal Thackeray, chief of the nationalist Shiv Sena, said that "the game of cricket is being corrupted by industrialists who are going berserk."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)