IPL, an irony

IPL is a weird irony. While it is the same event that provides an unprecedented platform to youngsters to compete with the best and make money which the players wouldn't have normally, it gives me a bad feeling that IPL is like prostituting cricket to make money. An ad between deliveries, sponsor names taking over legendary cricketing jargons, ads occupying quarter of the horizontal space, commentators forced to quasi-advertise, strategic time-outs to fit in extra sponsors. No other league, be it English Premiere League, or NFL, has ever distorted the very essence of the game so dramatically to churn out money. I am no Nehru who thinks profit is a dirty word. But couldn't the sanctity of the game have been retained by reducing the profitability by a small fraction?

When did you last see the franchise owner of a team seeking attention by screaming from the dug-out? What makes them think that their acting skills will help the team come up with wonderful strategies? As a true cricket lover, who loves to watch or follow the unadulterated contest between bat and ball, I genuinely don't appreciate every other visual/soundbyte of IPL broadcast being a reminder of some in-your-face money-milking. I don't care if the franchise owners make billions in the background. None of my business. All I want as a cricket-lover is to not spoil my viewing experience.

However, the truth remains that there won't be a word said against this vilification by those who are involved in it - as players, commentators or whatever. Who would want to spoil his riches overnight by speaking up? This is when the likes of Harsha Bhogle disappoint me. He generally has a whole bunch of opinions, but nothing (that I have read so far) against this apparent Mayawati-fication of cricket. Is it starting to become a mark of an insecure Indian? An insecure dalit CM (Mayawati) feels the need to showcase her wealth by wearing a Rs. 21 lakh garland, and an insecure entrepreneur, who wants to showcase how profit-making his business idea is (sports and its sanctity be damned) resorts to the "Mayawati-fication". Pathetic.