Growing City

The most irrelevant thing in this world, Charles Dickens said, is a poor cousin. He was making a very important point here -- money bring...

The most irrelevant thing in this world, Charles Dickens said, is a poor cousin. He was making a very important point here 8212; money brings mayhem in its wake. The adrenaline pulsating and nail-biting sports of the days of yore, have today, due to much sponsorship and media hype, become carnivals of crude commercialism.

One of the greatest fallout of too much sponsorship and media hype in sports is that it has created what could easily be termed as an apartheid in the world of sports. In India, it has hyped cricket to mind-boggling proportions, investing cricketers with an aura while at the same time sounding the death knell for other sports. Thanks to the media hype, every sport in India, except for cricket, is destined to destitution and is inching towards oblivion.

It is a telling commentary on our times of how the cricket-crazy media has assigned other sports to near irrelevance. One just needs to turn the sports pages of any newspaper to find how cricket and its heroes hog the limelight while the other less unfortunate sports have to be content with one or two columns tucked away on the margins.

In Vyur Guria village, 55 kms from Ranchi, Gopal Bhengra, who played hockey for India in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, crushes hundred stones daily for a sum of Rs 50. For Makhan Singh, who won a gold in relay at the Asian Games in 1962, life is a perpetual hell. Even the officials at Rail Bhawan in Delhi threw him out mistaking him for a beggar. The list is endless and the media is the sole culprit ignoring all other sports at the cost of cricket.

With the media blazing you to glory, losing is a four letter word which no one dare court. Cricketing ethos of the days of yore is gone and what has come in its wake is unsporting behaviour at its worst 8212; the charges of betting and match fixing plaguing cricket heroes.

Sponsorships and advertisements are being seen by astute businessmen as tools to mint money and reap huge profits. Revenue from the 8217;99 Cricket World Cup is expected to be close to 46 million pounds. Players are being enticed with largeness by their sponsors who put them under intense pressure to perform.

Cricketing heroes flashing the names of their sponsors on their clothing today look more like scamps out to make a quick buck rather than sporting personalities dedicated to the game.

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Too much of sponsorship is disavowedely disastrous for sports, and threatens to strike at the very root of sporting ethos. Let sports be free of brazen commercialism 8212; because no one wins if sports lose.

The writer is a postgraduate in History from PU, Chandigarh.