The fact that the Indian Premier League (IPL) started with great fan fare in 2008 was an evidence of how Cricket, especially in India,  made perfect business sense. The IPL, though planned on the lines of the European football tournaments, has turned out to be a business model for making money out of games. Lalit Modi, and his IPL, are now  making for a real good case study in the B-schools. Though IPL brought in new faces and talents in its form of cricket, the significant fact about the IPL is the commercialisation of a game that was already quite popular with the media.

The ruckus raised by the recent IPL snub of the Pakistani players – be it accidental, or premeditated – is an example of how business focus can lead to an aggravation of sore relationships. The reason for the  fiasco of not selecting the Pakistani players in any of the teams may be because none of the franchise wanted to bet money on horses, who they were not sure would even make it to the starting line. Post the Mumbai attacks, the relations between India and Pakistan have taken a turn for the worse – the effects of that can be seen on on the game too. No cricket match between the two nations has worked out since the Mumbai attacks.

A sport, any sport, if played with the right spirit, can always help to better the relations between two nations and not make them worse.

With business, Per-Cricketer Revenue (PcR) & Return on Investment (ROI) per cricketer, becomes the main focus of the organisers, team managers, and even the players. Taking a business approach, there is nothing wrong with the PcR and ROI view.

But IPL, a business endeavor as it is,  should, however, never forget that in the end it is all about the sport. A sport that is almost a religion in our country, and our neighbor nation too. Whatever anyone might say, it has to be accepted that Pakistan has some of the best T20 players in the world. Not selecting any of them for the league does make one smell a rat somewhere, and sometimes the smell can be attributed wrongly. The Governments – Indian or Pakistani – making some comments about the issue on the media is not going to help either.

A good thing at this juncture would be to try and nurture the relationship again, through one of the strongest medium available – the game of cricket. And, IPL can play a major role in this.

It will not be surprising when, in the near future, the IPL teams come out with IPO’s of their own. When any private institution controls a game, the democratic government can, and should, only voice its concern rather than try to control the game. But, when the sport is the largest aspirational sport of the country, thee franchise should think about the nation first, before going overboard with its decisions. Business is overrated in the IPL League.

As someone said, “Most games are only lost, not won.” But, a sport should always win…and never lose.