Women’s Premier League - A small but imperative step

By Anish Pathiyil

The Women’s Premier League (WPL), without a single ball being bowled, has managed to debunk the thought that women’s cricket cannot be monetarily viable. With the franchises collectively sold for Rs 4669.99 crore, the WPL has become the second-most-valuable cricket league in the world. It wasn’t very long ago that women’s cricket was treated as an amateur sport. Generations of women’s cricketers, from Shantha Rangaswamy and Susan Itticheria right up to Neetu David and Anjum Chopra had to shuffle day-jobs with their desire to play cricket, even at the highest level.

The bidding for the five franchises in the WPL, with amounts ranging from 750 crores to 1289 crores proves that business conglomerates also believe in the prospective success of the league. No business entity would own a WPL franchise as a service to women’s cricket. Their financial planners and advisors would have forecasted the profits they will be able to tap into as well as sponsorship deals they can strike before suggesting such an investment. While it can be argued that current IPL teams have invested in these teams to achieve a two-way push to their brand, the participation of entities like Haldirams is a sign of the confidence in the league.

Another major boost to the league is the mammoth media rights deal struck with the Viacom 18 network. The deal, reported to be around Rs 961 crore is higher than most other men’s T20 leagues in the world. The mathematics of this deal comes down to around Rs 7.09 crore per match. This is a significantly large amount the BCCI can pocket. Reports also state that the BCCI plans to give 80% of these broadcast revenues to the franchises for the first five years. This will ensure that the franchises have enough time to build up a brand and fanbase and bring in money through other outlets like sponsorships and other marketing ventures. This decision will absolve the high risk the franchises would have had to endure after paying upwards of Rs 750 crore for the women’s game that is nowhere near the level that the men’s T20 leagues currently are at.

Putting aside the business aspects of the league, and focussing solely on the sport, the WPL provides a never-seen-before platform for the growth of the women’s game, not only in India but also in foreign nations. The laudatory messages on twitter on January 25, comprised more international cricketers than Indian stakeholders. There is no doubt that the inception of the WPL is a watershed moment in women’s cricket. The plethora of female international cricketing stars like Ellyse Perry and Marizzane Kapp, despite their stardom and stature, will have never experienced crowds like the WPL promises.

The main concern for the critics of this event would be the present talent pool in Indian women’s cricket, or the lack thereof. Restricting the league to five teams would have also been mainly due to this reason. The decision to allow five foreigners instead of the four the men’s league allows becomes a welcome decision keeping this issue in mind. The decision to mandatorily play one foreigner from an associate nation is another step in the right direction. The performances of teams like Rwanda in the ongoing U19 women’s T20 World Cup had pleasantly surprised cricket fans across the globe. This rule will ensure that they get the stage to perform in front of packed crowds.

If the IPL yardstick is anything to go by, the futuristic impact of the WPL looks extremely promising. If the quality of the women’s game has to improve, the grassroot development of the game becomes an immediate priority. The initial reaction of the audience to the WPL will determine the extent of funds the franchises will be ready to pledge for the foundational initiatives. It took quite a few years for the IPL to unearth talents from the remote corners of India. The WPL franchise scouting teams will have their work cut out to identify potential Umran Maliks and Kuldeep Sens through the existing domestic set-up.

The women’s domestic setup has already managed to unearth talents like Kiran Navgire and Simran Bahadur. With the resources the franchises have, there is potential for more such stars to be unearthed. The more the talent flows through the system, the more the teams that can be incorporated, without a drop in quality of cricket played. Hopefully the league’s successes will pave the way for teams from Chennai and Kolkata, which have been bastions of Indian cricket over the decades.

There is one caveat though to the public fanfare surrounding the WPL. Some of us have been accustomed to the women’s game since at least 2017, but the viewership numbers are a fraction of what the IPL generates. The average Indian cricket fan must be careful not to judge the women’s game through the narrow-minded lens of standards set in men’s cricket. To put it in a simple way, while the men’s game is known for pace and aggressiveness the women’s game is more about spin and guile. The stakeholders and fans must ensure that enough avenues are provided to educate the masses on the nitty-gritties of the sport so that the sudden judgement, that the Indians are quite remarkable at, doesn’t seep in. Patience must be shown to let the league develop on its own. The league, hopefully, will not only make India a superpower in the women’s game but also provide fans across the board with plenty of joyous and soul-enriching moments.

As I type the conclusion to this article, the Indian women’s team have won the inaugural U19 T20 World Cup in South Africa. The highest degree of success the WPL will be aiming to achieve is to ensure talents magnified through these competitions, like Shriya Sehrawat and Parshavi Chopra, are given enough opportunities to rub shoulders with the GOATs of the game, thus moulding them into supremely successful athletes taking women’s cricket to unprecedented levels.