Cricket’s Tina factor

The only thing surprising about Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s dramatic entry into cricket is that it came so late — in the eighth year of his reign. For a chief minister to covet the presidency of a state cricket association may sound like a comedown, but it’s not.

Despite being a towering politician in his state, Modi has had only limited acceptability outside. Cricket, the only universally loved sport in India, is the obvious platform for a politician who wants wider recognition and a decent burial for his past.

To be sure, voters do not elect politicians on the basis of their contributions to cricket. But then, Sachin Tendulkar’s endorsement alone is not good enough to make me buy the biscuit brand he is promoting. What Sachin does is pull the brand higher up in my purchase consideration set, and this is what Modi may be hoping to achieve by embracing cricket: a higher level of acceptance with the national voter.

Cricket tends to give people associated with it a higher visibility. No other game is going to come anywhere near it in the foreseeable future. Cricket is king because of the 80:20 rule, which is derived from the Pareto principle. The principle, first enunciated by 19th century economist-philosopher Vilfredo Pareto, suggests that in any population wealth tends to be distributed in the 80:20 ratio.

That is, 80 per cent of the wealth is held by 20 per cent of the people. The principle has now been applied to almost all spheres of activity, especially business. Companies may find that 80 per cent of their profits come from 20 per cent of products.

In actual practice, you may find the ratio to be 72:28 or even 85:15. But the point is that success and effort are not proportionately related. Cricket is in that sweet spot where a little extra effort yields disproportionate benefits to the people associated with it, whether it is a politician or a player. The top two or three cricketers (Sachin, Dhoni) tend to corner a humongous share of the moolah from endorsements.

The logic applies to publicity as well. Even though all administrative bodies are dominated by politicians or bureaucrats (almost never players), cricket offers the best mileage. Do you know who runs the badminton or table tennis associations? They are nobodies compared to current and past czars of cricket: Sharad Pawar, Jagmohan Dalmiya, Lalit Modi.

Another Modi is now entering the fray.  Businessmen are latching on. Everyone — from fading cinema stars to tycoons and their star wives — wants to own a T20 cricket team.
If cricket is India’s No 1 sport by far, there are three reasons why. One, it had the first-mover advantage.

Thanks to our colonial legacy, the Indian aristocracy took to cricket (apart from polo) to establish its class status under British rule. As a gentleman’s game, one could keep the riff-raff out. The scenario would have been different if India had been a French colony rather than a British one. But that’s another story. Thanks to Robert Clive, who built British supremacy in India, cricket had a head start over every other game in our country. 
The second reason is population. South Asia, the seat of cricketing power, has close to one-and-a-half billion people. As the prime engine of the south Asian economy, India’s economic growth is naturally feeding cricket’s growth — and this will continue in the next two decades. Whoever rules cricket in India rules the world of cricket.

Third, there’s this paradox. For an outdoor sport, cricket can be played almost anywhere. Consider this: all you need is a bat and a ball, and you can play it in your gully. It can be played in choked urban areas as much as in places with wide open spaces. You can even play an indoor form of it on the backbenches of your classroom: book cricket.

On the other hand, football and hockey need wider playing fields; tennis needs a proper court. Badminton, volleyball and table tennis are more accessible, but they have not yet caught the imagination of the people. Despite being a patrician game, it is cricket that has become completely accessible to the plebs. Result: cricket rules.

The Michael Ferreiras and MS Gills of the world may rail in impotence against cricket’s ability to run away with all the resources, but they are up against the 80:20 rule. There is, however, some scope to develop other sports in India, but it will need lots of cash.

The only mitigation to the 80:20 rule is the Rule of Three: in any business, say professors Jagdish Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia, the top three players will account for almost 90 per cent of the business, with the first hogging more than 50 per cent, the second 20-30 per cent and the last one 10 per cent. The rest will be niche or bit players.

Cricket will continue to be No 1. There’s place for a sport as No 2 or No 3. It’ll take big bucks, but it can be done.