Column

Is cricket a panacea during an economic meltdown? History suggests it could be (as, indeed, any other sport would be, too) because it offers not just relief from grim reality, but also allows the community/country to rebuild trust and hope through the achievement of stellar performers or teams.

Donald Bradman provided the greatest succour to Australia’s hopes during the Great Depression of the 1930s with his batting exploits; around the same time, ace baseballer Babe Ruth did pretty much the same for the US. In Bradman and Ruth, Australians and Americans, respectively, found the salve for their wounds, as also the courage to battle difficult odds and emerge triumphant, in literal and lateral senses.

It needs hardly be said that both Bradman and Ruth were extraordinary sportsmen who would have excelled in any age. But some social scientists have postulated that both these players may just have been the product of their times; that without the economic hardship they had to endure, they might not quite have been as brilliant. The argument is contentious (after all, the developed economies have produced more champions and records), but fascinating nonetheless.

All things considered, the excitement of the IPL satraps that cricket is “recession proof” is not entirely misplaced where the interest of spectators/viewers is concerned, though I am not certain whether this also holds true for the business end of the scheme in these difficult times. Making money playing cricket is a different ball game altogether from making money from cricket, when the flow of cash in the system is barely a trickle.

Be that as it may, the show goes on. Record sums of money have been paid out to some key players, prompting not just widespread excitement, but some trepidation too. One sociologist I know asked whether the establishment should not have exercised some restraint, and a la Barack Obama’s decision to put a cap on the earnings of CEOs, restricted the scale of the IPL auction.

I believe that would be unfair — in recognising talent as well as running an enterprise freely. What cricket needs urgently, however, is mentoring of young players — perhaps even at the under-19 stage — on how to cope with fame and the big money which is coming in now.

The history of sports is littered with examples of players going bust despite earning millions (Mike Tyson and Bjorn Borg, to name two), and America’s NBA records that 60% of players file for bankruptcy within five years of quitting. In this context, the following explanation from Jordan Woy, a sports agent with the firm Schlegel Sport, is particularly pertinent:

“Most lottery winners or athletes make a great deal of money in a short period of time. They start spending it on things that only go down in value... If someone buys a Bentley, they have to buy one; if someone buys a $75,000 watch, they have to buy one... Then, of course, when the career ends and they are still living in a multi-million-dollar house, driving three expensive cars, travelling in private planes, taking limos when they go out on the town, reality sets in. The money dries up very quickly.”

Some lessons there for cricket’s new super-rich, perhaps.

Now that Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen have revived England’s stature by becoming the highest-paid players in the world (not including endorsements, of course, where Sachin Tendulkar still reigns supreme), I thought it worthwhile to find out what Dr WG Grace, considered the Father of Cricket, would have earned in his day.

Geoffrey Moorhouse’s profile on cricinfo provides interesting insights. “He [Grace] regularly collected testimonials — one, worth £1,458, was organised by MCC so that he might buy a medical practice — and overall probably took something like £1 million in today’s currency out of the game; and, remember, there was no sponsorship nor endorsements in those days to inflate a star’s income. This was in a period when the prosperous middle classes were earning no more than £1,000 a year, a highly skilled artisan £200, and a labourer half as much as that if he was lucky.”

Any further queries on whether cricket is recession proof?