When Indian cricket became a goldmine

An excerpt from a new book on Indian Test cricket looks at the rapid commercialization of the game in the late '80s and early '90s

- Devendra Prabhudesai

Sunil Gavaskar was one of the first Indian players to explore other avenues besides cricket

(GETTY IMAGES)

Around the time the MRF Pace Foundation was conceived, Sumedh Shah, a Bombay-based advertising professional with more than two decades of work experience, teamed up with Sunil Gavaskar to establish Professional Management Group (PMG), India's first sports event management and sponsorship company, in 1985.

By this time, Gavaskar was a bestselling author, a print columnist, an entrepreneur, an ambassador of multiple brands, and an activist who in the 1970s had taken up issues related to the players' remuneration and welfare with the board—all in addition to being a cricketing legend. Mindful of the limited career-span of a sportsperson, he had tapped other legitimate avenues to supplement his earnings.

Among PMG's many accomplishments were Gavaskar's debut as a TV host, the inception of the syndicated newspaper column, and the creation of annual awards and ratings for international and Indian cricket, years before the ICC and the BCCI considered doing so themselves.

Others built on the foundation laid by PMG. Sachin Tendulkar became India's highest-earning sportsperson when Mark Mascarenhas, who headed WorldTel, signed him for ₹31.5 crore for five years in 1995. As Tendulkar's manager, Mascarenhas was so successful that the association between the two was renewed in 2000 for ₹100 crore for another five years. By then, all the leading cricketers were being managed by professionals. A successful collaboration in later years was the one between Virat Kohli and Bunty Sajdeh, founder of Cornerstone.