IPL - It's Hazy Out There

As many things in this world, it all boils down to money. Let me explain.

The recently concluded CB series between India, Sri Lanka and Australia started on the 3rd of February and concluded on the 4th of March. 33 Days. Actually, taking a potential 3rd final into account, it would have gone on for 36 days. There were 11 ODIs scheduled for this period.
If we assume that an average ODI is a 8 hour event, there was 88 hrs of cricket scheduled over 36 days, giving viewers almost 2.5hrs of cricket each day, on an average. There is no hard evidence for this, but I thought it was a little too much cricket, with each team playing 3 matches against their opponents. Typical ODI series are 5 match events over 15 odd days, still amounting to 2.7 hrs of cricket each day. The reason that I felt CB series was prolonged was that it was for a longer period of time, even if the cricket per day was marginally less.

Now consider the IPL. 40 days, 59 games. If each T20 game is approximated to 4 hrs, that comes to 5.9hrs of cricket each day, almost 6 hrs. That alone makes this a financially viable medium of entertainment, with enough breaks for commercials. The real question is, how long can the viewers take 6 hrs of cricket each day? If this trend is any indication, then the answer is "not too long". The link, for those too lazy to read through the graphs, shows the IPL scorecard on TV ratings, which were at 7.2 for the 1st game and have consistently dipped to 3.6 for match 11, one fourth way into the tournament. I don't believe average cricket consumers can take 6 hrs of cricket everyday for any significant amount of time. Once the "newness" of IPL wears down, I think the true viewership rating will come out.

Then comes the other, qualitative, drawback of IPL. Generally speaking, the games have been entertaining, but I can't remember much of what happened the day before yesterday , let alone last week. It is getting hazy very fast. People will not remember much of what happened. Its too fast paced for the events to make any significant long-term impact on people's memories.

It will be safe to say that there will not be any significant memories of IPL 2008 in, say 2010. Want to compare to test cricket? How many people remember VVS Laxman's innings from 2001 OR Shewag's Multan innings? A significant part of enjoying cricket, for me and many of the cricket fans that I have come across, is re-living some good old cricket days. I have even enjoyed replays of many games from the T20 world cup, thanks to youtube. I am yet to see a match in IPL that I would like to view again, 6 months down the road, on youtube.

Don't get me wrong, I like the entertainment. I am happy that a lot of domestic players are getting the exposure and visibility that was unavailable previously. The cricket itself has been pretty good, though I would have loved to see the Deccan Chargers doing better. The cheerleaders are a breath of fresh air. The tussel between media and IPL maken an interesting dynamic. Infusion of Bollywood, slapping, crying, hugging is all fun. I am also enjoying the corporate culture making its way into Cricket, as witnessed in Bangalore. I like the rich fighting against the rich to provide more entertainment to the consumer. Remember, Stanford started this in WI, ICL brought it to India and IPL made it bigger than anything that wew have seen. Stanford now wants to pull in ECB, ICL is getting more and more international. What will IPL do? It is entertaining. Most of all, I am enjoying the cricket. But I am afraid it is cricket that I will forget soon. Very soon. and that is very sad.