In a development that is certain to add more heft to the idea of women’s empowerment, five teams in India’s new women’s T20 tournament have been sold for US$572 million. This is truly the coming of age of women’s cricket in India. The auction of the teams, which has left the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the governing body of the game that much richer, is being hailed as one of the biggest one-day bids in the history of women’s sports.
Even the foreign media reporting on cricket has admitted that the average price of the teams (US$114 million) has dwarfed valuations in more established American leagues and signalled the lucrative potential of the women’s game in the world’s richest cricket market. More importantly, with this the Women’s Premier League becomes the latest test case for competitive women’s sports attempting to attract audiences and sponsors. They are now comparable with the most lucrative men’s tournaments.
This is being rightly described as a “landmark” moment for women’s cricket in India. India, now an acknowledged cricketing powerhouse, had been slow to develop women’s cricket. Women’s cricket teams in India started making news much after countries like Australia and England had caught the attention of the world with their women’s teams.
Initially no one was willing to give women cricketers in India their due. They went mostly unnoticed. Even the merger with the men’s cricket board in 2005 was also done rather reluctantly. There was considerable resistance to the move because the old order did not want the status quo to be disturbed by the emergence of women players. Hence India’s women’s team had to content itself playing second fiddle to the top two teams in the world, Australia and England. This continued for a while, with India slipping beyond West Indies to number five slot in the world.
Then things began improving. India’s cricket administration underwent a sea change with the Supreme Court stepping in and getting a Committee of Administrators (CoA) to administer the game. There was no stopping the women’s game as former India captain Diana Eduljee was part of the CoA. Her sheer presence brought the women’s game into focus. It started getting the attention it deserved at the top level.
Now the Indian women’s team is counted among the top teams of the world, with a record to be proud of. Several Indian players, including present captain Harmanpreet Kaur, are rated highly by cricket experts around the world. As the women’s team started getting noticed, money also started flowing in for the players – but it was never anywhere close to what the male cricketers earn.
All this has changed with the latest auction for the women’s premier league. This has paved the way for women into the money-spinning male-dominated Indian Premier League. This will be like turning conventional cricket on its head, with Indian women cricketers earning multimillion-dollar contracts for the first time. They have now well and truly arrived.
Comment here