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In the year 2008 BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) started a franchise based cricket league which changed cricket as we know it, not only in ways people consume content for entertainment but economics as well. As the league progressed and prospered many players started to believe and rightly so, that they can make a living from cricket without the fear of not landing the coveted spot of playing for the national team. On average some thirty players received annual contracts from the BCCI from which majority of the players to represent the national team were drawn, the numbers were very little in a country of over a billion people where every little kid dreamed of playing for the national team at some point in their life. Due to the limited number of spots available through which people can make a living as a professional athlete the competition was immense and many good players never saw the light of the day to fulfill their lifelong ambition.
Due to all the above factors when IPL (Indian Premier League) started it lifted the spirits of numerous individuals and cricket academies as it gave them money, fame and name recognition which previous generations could only dreamed of. Counting all the benefits, the league has one serious flaw which hides in plain sight, it is a closed league like many of its American counterparts and new teams can only make it to the league when there is an expansion. Even if a team finished last for consecutive seasons they can come back next year to try their luck in winning the league, which by itself has nothing wrong with it but it doesn’t give teams any incentive to play better when certain teams have no chance of making it to the playoffs halfway through the season.
Alternative to closed league is having a promotion and relegation much like its European counterparts in English Premier League, Spanish La Liga & German Bundesliga where bottom three teams are relegated to the next league in the pyramid and top three teams of the next league are promoted. It might sound harsh for some teams with loyal fan bases which are extremely popular in their own cities, however this system also gives chances to teams in small cities to dream big and make it on their own through sheer will and determination. In India we don’t have a pyramid system on ranking for various leagues but due to the explosion in cricket various regional t20 leagues have mushroomed around the country in the form of Tamil Nadu Premier League, Andhra Premier League, Karnataka Premier League, & Maharashtra Premier League to name a few. European league sometimes come out as very harsh when teams are relegated after bad performance in one season, in India you can give more leeway to teams but proposing a structure where teams that finish in the bottom three for three consecutive season will be replaced by the best performing team in the last three years from regional league of their geographical proximity. In cases where there are more than one regional league or no regional league the board can propose which league the existing team will be in competition with to make it more interesting, like Odisha Premier League for Kolkata Knight Riders as West Bengal doesn’t have any regional t20 league.
Through this system Salem Panthers & Mysuru Warriors can dream of playing in the IPL and it will incentivize them to play better and harder in the respective leagues. Along with competition for improvement in cricket it will also solve a perennial problem that has plagued many American sports leagues, teams relocating to other cities when revenues are affected by team performances. The above phenomenon occurred in almost all leagues in America, where fans stop attending live games when their team performs badly. This directly affects revenue and this is when other cities offer financial packages to relocate in hopes of having a franchise team in their city, many times teams negotiate with other cities to get good financial deals and hold the city hostage for their own personal interest. In comparison if you see in Europe hardly any teams relocate to another city as their identity is tied to the city itself. For this reason you can ever imagine Barcelona FC or Manchester United FC playing in different cities permanently for financial reasons. This next step will be innovative in many ways and make the sport accessible to Tier II & III cities and prove the notion wrong that you can only have a franchise team if you are a big city.
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