Women's (Cricket) Problems
And how opinions can force solutions..
Smriti Mandhana does not need a Railway job. Deepti Sharma was courted by the Railways for a number of years, but then lured by Bengal to play as a professional. Harmanpreet Kaur resigned her Railway job and is now employed by Punjab Police. Sushma Verma is employed with the state police too. As is the entire Odisha state cricket team, and thus they aren’t in Railway jobs. Jhulan Goswami is an Air India employee, and won't be taking a Railway job.
There are a few other exceptions. But pretty much everyone else on the women's domestic circuit has only the Railways as a possible customer for their cricketing talents.
Railways are practically the sole employers of women's cricketers in the country. And so, they are the strongest side, and a monopoly. That creates problems.
Last week, I did a couple of content pieces on women’s cricket. One was my column for Hindustan Times, on the harm that the Railways is doing women’s domestic cricket. (And the good.) If you care about women’s cricket in India, this is a situation you need to understand. Read the piece here, then let’s chat on:
The other content piece I did was a thread on Twitter. Yes, those count as content pieces as well. Especially when it required some thought, some research, and then a succinct framing of the data and my opinions based on that data.
https://twitter.com/SnehalPradhan/status/1461322862367703046?t=YXYx6b-86yD9ZHId81RQGw&s=19
This thread was in response to a thread about a Women's IPL by a fellow member of the media. There were a few throwaway lines which I strongly disagreed with, but also the entire thread conveyed an ‘other-ness’ with regards to the view on women’s cricket. There’s mentions of ‘free lunches’ and ‘CSR’. I may be getting this wrong, but it could reflect the resentment that some in the cricket community have about using money from men’s cricket to grow women’s cricket. At least for me, that’s how it came across. I’d love for you to go through both threads and share your views on them.
What the fellow member of the media gets right is the fact that a future IPL needs to be financially sustainable. But also, I believe it will need seed money from men’s cricket to be invested, with a view to generating long term revenue from the women’s game itself. And I don’t see this as a bad thing. Like I mentioned on the thread, when a car company uses profits earned by one car into the development of a second car, they’re not doing social work, they’re reinvesting in their business to create multiple products, and thus multiple revenue streams.
There are so many ways to think about a sustainable revenue model for a Women’s IPL. And I’m currently working on a piece that shows what I think a workable model could be. I’m no expert on revenue models, so I’ll probably get a lot wrong. If you have views of what might work, please reply to this and give me your suggestions.
But there’s a couple of points I’m making here:
Women’s cricket has unique problems which need some deep thinking in order to find solutions. The thread I responded to has forced me to go a bit deeper into what I believe a Women’s IPL should look like, flesh out exactly what the revenue model might be like. This process is giving me an appreciation of the various positions involved, and is challenging me to find a win-win solution for all stakeholders. In the end, a throwaway line has spurred me to find more clarity to my own thoughts on a subject that everyone has opinions on, but very few have solutions on. I want to spend some time sharpening my opinions into solutions.
On the content front, it’s a reminder that threads can be great pieces of content on Twitter, and can sometimes involve just as much research as an article would demand. Take this advice with a pinch of salt. It just might be me trying to justify all that time spent on Twitter :)
See you next week.
Song of the week: Mast Magan from Two States. Hadn't heard it in years, and it reappeared in the broadcast room of my recent commentary stint (which is where the photo is from). Immediately added it to my Likes, which i’ve been curating for a year now.
Hi Snehal
I've spent a couple of decades working on revenue models in corporate India. I would be happy to help with putting together the business model. The revenue model is something I've been thinking about for a while as well, because I believe, that the financials need to be structured in such a way as to enhance the watchability of the game. That means specific tweaks to the business model which means a slightly different rev model.
I don't want any credit or any money for the work - just want to help, and I like having new problems to solve. Am happy to chat further. You can look up my profile on linked in. Vidyahariharan1311@gmail.com
Regards - Vidya
I am not sure about how economically sustainable the WBBL is, but given that we are in the seventh season - It would be safe to assume that they are doing well. We should take learnings out of their model to build out a sustainable model for the WIPL!
As Aditya mentioned in his comment, the best possible way to start would be have teams as extensions of the existing IPL Teams (Similar to the BBL). Using the Brand equities of the likes of CSK, MI, RCB and others for the Women's game can not possibly go wrong. Add to the the IPL 2007 Icon Players format - with the big India Names, it could be a good way to kickstart the WIPL. There perhaps needs to be an inorganic push from BCCI to have the existing franchises invest some more into the Women's game, which is potentially a Big If.
RCB's idea for mixed-gender exhibition match was nixed by the BCCI - But could be another way to promote the Idea of WIPL. There certainly needs to be a bit more flexibility from the stakeholders to make it happen.
Profitability may be the most important metric in the long run, but in the short-run the push should be towards increasing viewership and demand. And as you suggested from the numbers, the demand most certainly seems to be there.