I, Caesar; Me, Modi

Much like the Beijing Olympics and China, the Indian Premier League was supposed to be the Board of Control for Cricket in India's coming out party. Much like the Beijing Olympics and China, IPL is turning out to be the BCCI's self-inflicted public relations headache.

With the first ball due to be bowled -- and the first cheerleader squad due to begin dancing -- in Bangalore on Friday, April 18, afternoon, IPL is threatened with a boycott by news channels because it wants them to conform to unprecedented restrictions when showing match visuals. It has singled out cricket websites for special treatment, refused them entry to the media box and even the right to buy photographs from the usual news photo agencies.

The argument of Mr Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, is that the portal rights for the tournament have been sold to an 'American company'. It has exclusive permission to report the match on the Internet and upload pictures. The name of this 'American company' and the address of its Website are, however, unknown. They cannot be revealed because of its upcoming stock market float.

How can one visit a Website one doesn't know the address of? Ask Mr Modi and the BCCI.

Actually if you ask the bumptious IPL bureaucracy any questions, you are likely to be told off, dismissed as a small fry journalist who doesn't merit a hearing, since the IPL top brass knows your employer. At a meeting with sports editors in Mumbai this is precisely what happened. The journalists got no clarifications, only a long list of media barons whom Mr Modi had on speed dial: "I know your bosses. Why should I talk to you?" In another life, the IPL commissioner could have been Governor of Tibet.

This wasn't how the Great Indian League was supposed to be. The floating of IPL marked the marriage of cricket and capitalism, designed to give India a professional league and transparently-run sports clubs that would be accountable to fans and stakeholders. They would take rational and honest decisions when, for instance, choosing teams -- in short, be all that the BCCI itself had refused to be.

Admittedly, IPL has become a huge, huge business opportunity. In the past few weeks, every third BCCI official has been on television extolling the virtues of making money, underlining India's critical importance to the modern cricket economy and pointing out that a domestic T20 league with international stars is a template for 21st century cricket.

The self-congratulation may be misplaced but the IPL numbers are true. Simply put, eight teams, all of which are spending big on brandbuilding, have created a market for eight times as many cricket-related businesses than one Indian national team could do.

Consider the evidence. In the past four to six weeks, film studios and related production facilities in Mumbai have been so packed with IPL-linked shoots that some Hindi film units have actually migrated to Delhi and other cities. Such advertising frenzy has not been seen since just before the 2007 World Cup; perhaps, it is even larger.

The pie has expanded; there is now something for everyone. From Kolkata to Delhi, player agents and endorsement managers who hitherto fought and scrambled to get their favourite players into national reckoning have made comfortable arrangements with one IPL franchise or the other.

Yet, there is a fly in the ointment; or, a tampered ball in the kit bag. There is a difference between ethical capitalism and crony capitalism. A business environment without an independent regulator is a non-starter. In the case of IPL, the BCCI and its officials are playing regulator, making up rules as they go along -- alright, some of this may be unavoidable because this is year one -- but also promoting their own business interests and helping friends and associates.

Take the media issue. Over the past two years, the BCCI has begun producing its own pictures and hiring its own commentators. It pays a production house to actually put up and man the cameras and then, in real time, transfers the audiovisual feed to the channel that has paid it the most. The same model is being followed by IPL. It has hired TWI as a production house and sold the telecast rights to the Sony network

In a parallel move, Mr Modi and his associates have recently announced that the BCCI will eventually set up its own channel and run its own cricket portal. There is nothing wrong with this per se; Manchester United owns a television channel as do many other sports bodies/clubs.

The big difference is that there is a clear demarcation between those who run or have a stake in the club's media business and those who regulate the larger media environment for the individual sport. The chief executive of Manchester United TV does not also decide whether journalists from BBC or Sky Sports will be allowed into an English Premier League football match.

Now consider what is happening with IPL. Officially, the IPL governing body is a committee of the BCCI. Two members of the governing body are Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri. This past week they ended their contracts with ESPN/Star Sports and signed on as the BCCI's in-house commentators. It is likely they will be in the commentary box for IPL matches. This seems highly irregular and could amount to a conflict of interest. The Election Commissioner cannot also anchor election news programmes on television.

Second, Mr Modi is seen as the marketing wizard of the BCCI. He is the likely promoter of the BCCI's upcoming channel and portal. There is the valid suspicion that he is using his dual status as IPL commissioner to cripple potential rivals and existing media outlets. In short, a player is being given authority as regulator.

Mr Modi is a man who wears multiple hats -- BCCI money guru, IPL overlord, a businessman with interests ranging from tobacco to media (he is the distributor in India of Fashion Television or FTV), most influential private citizen in Rajasthan. He is also IPL commissioner. It is an astonishing and demanding array of job descriptions.

It would be best for Mr Modi's punishing schedule -- and for the credibility of IPL and the BCCI -- if he gives up the IPL commissioner's post before the 2009 tournament. The BCCI should hire a complete outsider from a totally unrelated industry -- anybody with an interest in cricket and an appropriate background in business economics would do -- and pay him a market-determined salary.

It should also ask all IPL governing council members to sign an affidavit that they have no stakes, stated or unstated, in any franchise and are not benefiting financially from the tournament. These are routine insider trading clauses. For years the BCCI has ignored them; IPL cannot afford to do so.