BOMBAY, 13 December 2002 — Whatever the officials on both sides may say, it is no more a secret that the Board of Control for Cricket in India has stuck steadfast to its stand, if not rejected the ICC players‚ terms agreement for next year’s World Cup.
The Indian side, represented by the BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya and senior active player, Anil Kumble, climbed down to the point that the players will forego personal endorsements, which conflict with official sponsors, but only during the Feb. 8-March 23 tournament in Southern Africa, instead of 30 days before and after the event, as laid down in the contracts.
The Indian cricketers will also allow their images to be used by sponsors for just two months after the event, instead of six as demanded by the International Cricket Council.
These two issues are the stumbling blocks, perhaps the last ones, before the decks are cleared for the biggest World Cup of cricket to open on Feb. 8 next year. There is no doubt that with the crucial meeting at Kolkata last Monday ending in a stalemate, the ICC faces the wrath of its major sponsors, who insisted on the ambush marketing clauses when signing a seven-year deal worth $550 million.
The question that might be asked again and again is: Why is India’s and the Indian players‚ consent and agreement so important to the ICC and the World Cup organizers ? After all. They are one of the 14 participating teams.
First and foremost, vast cricket-crazy television audiences in India and the involvement of a plethora of corporates guarantee a chunk of the total television revenue that the organizers hope to rake in. On a modest estimate, the revenue from India alone could be more than fifty per cent of the estimated revenue from television. Moreover, three of the four major World Cup sponsors — Pepsi, LG Electronics and Hero Honda — have major commercial interests in India worth millions of dollars.
The second factor is that star Indian players have high-value endorsement contracts already in their pockets, which cannot be breached. The ICC officials have appreciated these points, but have unnecessarily dragged their feet after what had happened just before last September’s Champions Trophy in Colombo.
At an executive committee meeting held soon after the Colombo event, the ICC decided to iron out all differences so that everything would be in place before the World Cup. A special committee was formed for the purpose.
But with less than two months to go to the stellar event, the ICC seems nowhere near having solved the old problems, nor are they any closer to making the Indian players accept their proposals.
Now the ball is in the court of the major World Cup sponsors. They will have to accept to undertake the proposed amendments to the players terms, especially of the clause with regard to six-month imaging rights insisted by them. And what exactly is this imaging right ?
It is the right of the sponsors to use any clipping of any player or group of players in action during the World Cup as a part of their advertisement campaign for six months after the event. And all this for free.
The sponsoring companies can take any action from the vast reserves of video recordings of the matches and make free use of them in any form of advertisement on television. These could include the world’s leading players, their best action and close-ups.
Why should the Indian player, or for that matter a cricketer from any country, allow this use without due payment. The likes of Tendulkar, Sehwag and Ganguly get paid in millions for each of such endorsements. They cannot just allow their images to be used for free.
Even then, they are prepared to concede the imaging rights for just two moths after the event, and not for six months, as demanded by the sponsors and agreed upon by the ICC.
The Indian players are able to consent to a two-month period only because their own major sponsors have agreed to reconcile their own interests and not pull up any of the players for a breach of contract.
If the endorsees of Tendulkar, Sehwag and Ganguly and the rest, agree to make this concession, then the World Cup sponsors and the ICC too must climb down.
It is worth recalling that the ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Gray has accepted this argument and is indeed sympathetic to the Indian standpoint. In this there is hope.
The World Cup organizers, the events‚ major sponsors and the ICC itself do realize that time is running out, as all the advance publicity and presentations ought to have been ready by now. They cannot dilly-dally any more.
Only a couple of amendments in the players‚ terms agreement are required to be made. The first is that the “conflict of interest” ads of the cricketers be kept out for only the duration of the World Cup and not for one month on either side of the event. The second change required is to whittle down the period of imaging rights from six moths after the event to just two months beyond the World Cup.
The three major World Cup sponsors, who have a very strong presence in India, will have to take a more realistic view of the situation, as it prevails at the moment. If at all they do so, it will not be out of caring for India and its top players. What they will be doing is reassessing their own business interest. Surely, they cannot ambush their own profitability by their adamant attitude.
In this one sees a hope that everything will be settled in the next fortnight.
