If you rob the idols, you ruin the temple

Yes, cricketers can earn lakhs — a couple of crores, maybe — in match fees. So do many middle-level MNC executives. But they usually don’t set pulses racing, adrenaline flowing across the country and through the world. The cricketers do; they are the reason people support a game.

What has this got to do with the ICC’s takeover of cricketers’ commercial rights? Again, simple: take away the purse of these cricketers and you stand to rob the entire cricket economy. Children are inspired seeing Sachin in a Ferrari; how will they react if he rides a motorcycle? Take away the idols and you ruin the temple.

Everyone’s talking about ‘ambush marketing’ as a reason for the ICC’s actions. Ambush marketing is when a product tries to illegally associate itself with an event of which a competitor is a sponsor; this can happen through direct or demeaning references. Players endorsing a product that is a competitor to an official partner alone does not constitute ambush marketing. If it did, what would you say when an official broadcaster ran the spots of a sponsor’s competitor?

Jog your memory and replay all the advertisements during the last football World Cup. The most memorable ads were of Pepsi, one of the tournament partners was Coke. This was not ambush marketing because these ads suggested no direct or indirect association with the World Cup.

The ICC is wrong on two counts. First, it has tried to usurp the rights of individuals, which is not their property. No world body does this. Yes, there can be restrictions on playing conditions, clothing during play and direct or indirect references to the event. Personal endorsements that don’t violate these conditions aren’t restricted even in the Olympics or World Cup football.

Secondly, the ICC is inducing cricketers to renege on their existing contracts with other business houses. Abroad, there are very stringent laws on this subject.

The ICC will be in trouble if any cricketer legal action. Will it be able to explain how a player’s endorsement of a competitor’s product becomes an ambush tactic and the broadcaster’s relay of a competitor’s spot not?

By this logic all broadcasters should also be prohibited from running spots of any rivals of the ICC event sponsors. But that would not happen because the channels would just refuse to pay the rights fees.

This contract is faulty both in spirit and law and will find it hard to stand the scrutiny of time.