Rebirth of India: Superior

Although the sport of cricket originated in the UK, it is most prosperous in India. It can even be said that cricket is to India what table tennis is to China. It is definitely the national sport. In India, whether on the grass in front of the Prime Minister's Office in New Delhi or on the yellow muddy ground in remote rural areas, you can see people playing cricket in groups, even under the scorching sun of more than 40 degrees. . According to statistics from the consulting firm Luogov, in India, 62% of people (about 7.5 billion people) play cricket at least four times a year, and 85% of respondents follow cricket events through TV or other media, and Indians are the most The sports event I am paying attention to is not the Premier League or the NBA, but the Indian Premier League (ipl).

When cricket first arrived in India, it was only an exclusive sport for the British rulers. However, in order to please the British colonial authorities, the indigenous Indian rulers still promoted cricket in their jurisdictions. So overnight, Indians playing cricket were everywhere in the open spaces in the countryside and in the crowded streets of the city. However, Indians soon fell in love with this imported sport because it was very consistent with their life rhythm. Just like the Indian epic "Mahabharata", it is long but not boring; the only difference is that cricket The players can go home alive and continue preparing for tomorrow's game.

Although Shakru could be considered a sports fan in his previous life, he has always been vague about the sport of cricket, and has never been able to distinguish the difference between cricket and baseball or softball (it is said that baseball, especially professional baseball in the United States, is derived from cricket. Simplified), I even thought it was similar to the croquet played by the old men in the park.

So now Mukesh comes to him and says he wants to buy a cricket team. He has no idea at all. This is different from football. He is very aware of the changes in football in the future. Every year, he can buy new players low and sell high. It brought him an income of more than ten million pounds, but he had a dark eye on cricket. He didn't even recognize the current popular players, let alone the rookie players.

Originally he wanted to say, I have no interest in cricket, but then he thought about it, he couldn't say this casually. Old Patera had said before that he didn't look like an Indian anymore. If he questions the national game now, he will It made people feel that something was wrong, so they had to find an excuse and said: "With the half-dead league in India right now, it doesn't make sense to buy a team and spend money without making any money."

"Don't you know? Now the chairman of the Indian Cricket Board, Lalit Moti, has discussed with the manager of img, Andrew Wildblood, in London. In addition to the original Indian Cricket League, it will be modeled on The American Professional League allows league teams to implement franchise operations and create a new cricket super league.

And reduce the original 26 teams to eight, and then conduct a public auction, and Star Media (Star), Disney's ESPN and your familiar Zee TV station are planning to purchase the broadcast rights, plus there are now more than 400 million in the country cricket fans, so this deal will definitely not be a loss. ” Mukesh explained enthusiastically.

Although Mukesh was talking with great interest, Shakru still felt something was wrong, so he asked: "Brother Mukesh, even if this cricket team can make some money, you won't be so excited, right? I usually don't I didn’t realize you were a cricket fan.”

"Why can't I be a cricket fan?" Mukesh said stiffly, but then he changed the topic and sighed: "Hey, isn't this guy Anil challenging me? He said he wanted to buy a ball. Team, from now on all the grievances between me and him will be in the game. I thought about it, this is a good way, at least there is a place to settle the grievances between us brothers. "

Hearing this, Shakru didn't know what to say. In fact, he could quite understand Mukesh's heart, although it was absolutely impossible for him to make any concessions to Anil on the issue of the inheritance of Reliance Group. , and the two of them were secretly fighting fiercely, but no matter what, they were brothers, and their mother was still there, so Mukesh didn't want the fight between the two to become irreconcilable, so he accepted Ani. Here's the solution.

After thinking for a long time, Shakru did not agree to buy a team, but decided to buy a share in Mukesh's team.

On the day of the auction, Shakru realized that he seemed to have underestimated the passion for cricket among Indians, especially the rich Indians, because the guys fought fiercely throughout the auction, and Mukesh spent a total of US$1.2 billion in the end. Just won the Mumbai Indians, Anil won the Punjab XI, and India's cement king Srinivasan won the Delhi Warriors. What shocked Shakru most was that his Indian star Shah Rukh Khan, one of the three Khans, actually joined the ownership team of Kolkata Knight Riders. The last eight teams totaled a terrifying $7.2 billion.

Three months later, the first round of the Indian Premier League (IPL) kicked off, and India went crazy. In the semi-finals and season of the first season, a total of 62 million viewers watched the games on TV, with an average of 62 million viewers per game. 11% of TV viewers are locked in. The following month, Sony and World Sports Group struck a nine-year broadcast rights deal with the BCCI worth up to $1 billion.

This situation shocked Shakru. In fact, it was because Shakru in his previous life had no knowledge of cricket. Otherwise, he would know that everything in front of him was just the beginning. As of 2014, the Indian Premier Cricket League has surpassed the Olympic Games (US$10.4 billion), the World Cup and other influential international events with an annual output value of US$4 billion, becoming the second largest event after the American Professional Football League (annual revenue of US$4.5 billion). (The third is the Major League Baseball, the fourth is the NBA, and the fifth is the World Cup.)

And the salary level is second only to the NBA in the world. In the global sports world, NBA players have the highest average weekly salary, reaching 50,847 pounds. The second is the Indian Premier Cricket League, where players have a weekly salary of 48,243 pounds. The main reason is that their season is only the American Professional Baseball League, where the average weekly salary of players is 35,147 pounds. The average weekly salary of Premier League players is 28,230 pounds. They are ranked fourth, and the fifth is the NFL American Football League, where the average weekly salary of their players is 22,506 pounds.

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