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‘Manoranjan ka baap' has turned five now. In these four years, ‘he' spent nearly six months on the ground, generating miles of video footage.
Of course, glamour and big money helped ‘him' grow from strength to strength. For the uninitiated, manoranjan ka baap was one of the initial television promos of commercial cricket's big brand in India. The 20-20 version of cricket got a major push as a commercial proposition in the form of Indian Premier League (IPL) in a country obsessed with the game.
All the masala
The four seasons of the IPL tournament saw cricket being played for more than 170 days, creating video footage of nearly 750 hours. Just like a typical Bollywood movie, manoranjan ka baap had it all — sentiment, glamour, music, and some foreign location too (remember IPL-2 in South Africa?). If Pran or Amrish Puri in the past and Arjun Rampal recently played the baddies in their movies, manoranjan ka baap was witness to the on-field fights of players and off-field controversies of various others associated with it. This provided the much-needed masala of the Bollywood formula.
The entry of industrialists — ranging from a beverage-maker to a petrochemical tycoon, and from real-estate developers to film-stars — showed the power and potential of this franchise.
Announcing the winning team bids in 2008, Mr Lalit Modi, the then Chairman and Commissioner of IPL, had stated that corporates were convinced about the ‘product'. The top franchise-winning bid of Rs 443 crore at that time had proved this point. The eight winning franchises had agreed to pour in crores of rupees to create a brand that, till then, was just a concept. You would have read about a particular actor commanding a price of ‘XYZ' during a particular period of his/her career. Based on the performance at the box office, the actor's value either goes up or plummets. The situation is no different here either. The IPL has made players a highly tradable commodity.
Eyebrows were raised in 2008 when Dhoni earned $1.5 million to join Chennai Super Kings. Muthiah Muralitharan, who was Chennai's asset in 2008 for $600,000, went to Bangalore for $220,000 for this year's edition. Gambhir, who was priced at $750,000 by Delhi in 2008, was bought by Kolkata for $2.4 million in the 2011 edition.
Heroes and superstars
So some ‘heroes' went to become ‘superstars', other ‘heroes' were relegated to the role of ‘supporting actors' (in terms of earning money). The manoranjan factor, which was common to this format and movies, had a major impact on movies in the last four years. Releases of many of the big budget movies were rescheduled. In fact, some matches of IPL 3 were screened in 3D format also.
It is a common thing for the producers of big budget movies these days to look at the overseas market too. Having tasted success by organising the second edition of IPL in South Africa in 2009, the organisers tried to attract overseas viewers by tapping GenNext channels such as YouTube in 2010. Media reports say that of the 50-million viewers tuned into the YouTube IPL channel, almost 40 per cent were from outside India.
This year is the fifth year for manoranjan ka baap to prove ‘his' mettle in the ever-changing ‘box-office' of Indian cricket. Will ‘he' emerge a super-star this time around too? Let's watch and see.
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