Can you guess the biggest yet lovable and supported industry in India? music, drama, film, sports or what? The answer to all this is Entertainment. These industries, which are listed above as options for the question asked, depend on entertainment. People in India support all these industries, from film to sports to T serials to reality shows to music to dancing shows and more, which revolve around entertainment because that is what is accepted and needed by people. The shows which keeps them engaging and happy, when they come back from their busy life of 9-5 and when they are on their televisions, they know that they are going to feel entertained and relaxed.
One of the best supported industries in India is the sports industry either cricket or football , every generation love sports because they love to see their favourite player playing on TV, they love to see the sport, and some of them love to see them live from stadiums. Taking this craze as inspiration, the BCCI, that is board of control for cricket in India thought of merging entertainment with sports specially cricket as an experiment and introduced India to IPL in 2008 that is Indian Premier League. IPL has different teams based on the states of India and the captains are the Indian players with a team of 11 players having players from all across the teams in world who play cricket.
IPL didn’t tell us how cricket is played but it tells us how it is valued. With billion dollar broadcasting channels, deals sponsors and franchise valuations, this league gained a massive popularity worldwide and specially in youngsters in India and out of India and became one of the richest sports competitions in the world. Firstly, this league used to broadcast only on television, but later OTT platforms, Jio and Hotstar, took it and started broadcasting it on OTT, which made it easy for the audience to view and enjoy it from wherever they want.
Today, the young players who once thought of meeting famous players like MS Dhoni or Virat Kohli now play with them or share a room with them. IPL has given this courage and power to support these talents and introduce them to India as building and talented minds. Shubhman gill, Yashaswi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh and the list goes on, these are the young minds who are setting a target and dream through IPL that anything is possible with the right support and guidance.
From the beginning of IPL, there were not as much sponsors to support this league but once it got support from people, many sponsors hired one one team and made it their own by taking players in their team, like the Mumbai Indian is owned by Neeta Ambani and her son, just like kings XI Punjab is owned by Priety Zinta and many more. This helps in support and let people engage more.
From packed stadiums in Mumbai and Chennai to watch parties worldwide , IPL has became a festival to be enjoyed in summers from April to may. Here every player is a celebrity, every team is a brand and matches are prime time events. Jerseys, flags, advertisements of IPL, fantasy leagues and many more are supporting this all.
Before this Cricket was not accepted or supported in India except then world cup or any such event , but today it serves as a backbone to global cricket. In India cricket is watched by 5 -600 billion people all across India. India is no longer a country that only listens to orders that used to come for cricket, but today India is a cricket commander; decisions that are made in Indian Premier League boardrooms ripple across the sport globally.
In India, entertainment and sports are now seen together because of IPL. IPL is not just a league today but a feeling of millions of people across the world, it unites people together to watch matches, every match they watch hold an emotion, holds a feeling of winning or losing. Indian Premier League tells us that cricket is not just a game but, it is a heartbeat of India which chants only one thing; play bold, play proud and play like a champion.
References:
- BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India ) history
- Wikipedia ( indian premier league) past and present upgrade
- The Economic Times ( IPL viewer statistics )