BCCI dropping the ball on Cricket World Cup ticket sales hurts India's economy too

The empty seats at the Narendra Modi Stadium reflected poor for the much created hype of the ICC World Cup 2023.
The empty seats at the Narendra Modi Stadium reflected poor for the much created hype of the ICC World Cup 2023.

Summary

  • As hosts of significant tournaments, the BCCI should uphold its reputation with efficient management

In cricket-mad India, attendance was less than stadium-bursting full, to put it politely, in Ahmedabad at the opening game in of the Cricket World Cup, a once-in-four-year event India is hosting for the first time in a decade. Despite this, many fans reported online tickets being unavailable.

The same scene played out in Chennai during India's first match, prompting widespread online criticism and accusations of "mismanagement".

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the game's wealthiest global entity with a revenue of ₹27,411 crore from FY18 to FY22 as per a report in the Economic Times, seems to have failed in its ticketing strategy. 

So, it is surely not a resource constraint that has made BCCI deploy an ineffective ticketing mechanism. It rations tickets when there is no need to ration them, opens up ticket sales randomly without giving priority to fans waiting to buy a ticket, instead offers tickets to whoever is lucky enough to log in when ticket sales are open, and ends up selling too few tickets sells online, resulting in empty seats, disappointed fans and global scepticism about Indians’ enthusiasm for the sport.

To be fair to BCCI, selling tickets to a very large demand base is not easy. The debacle of Ticketmaster’s ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s first post-Pandemic live performance led to US senate hearing on anti-Trust laws. Closer home, while BookMyShow got a lot of flak for the last-minute cancellation of comedian Tevor Noah’s show in Bengaluru, the problem really was not so much with the ticket sales as with the event management - poor acoustics forced Noah to say that you cannot have a show if the comedians on stage cannot make themselves heard, and the traffic made Noah reach the venue late, while stranding many a would-be attendee.

But BCCI should have known about the technical requirements of managing huge demand for tickets. It has no excuse for finalising the game schedule so late as to begin ticket booking way closer to the event than was necessary. It cannot allow the munificence of revenue from television and online broadcast rights to neglect stadium ticket sales.

A big global tournament is not just about the game in question. A lot of economic activity rides on the individual elements of the tournament. Ticket sales are just one part.

People buy new television sets on which to match matches. Electronic manufacturers, their dealers, broadcast distributors, phone companies — all gain. Advertising agencies and media buying companies get lots of business. Film makers, music directors, musicians, art directors, painters, actors, all get new jobs.

People travel from afar to watch the game. Airlines, taxi and bus services gain. Fans book accommodation. They order food, which is delivered. After the game, fans party. The entire hospitality sector gets a big boost, as does entertainment. All paid economic activity also yields GST revenue for the government. The economy as a whole gets a boost from staging a mega tournament.

Selling tickets online for a mega event is a demanding technical operation. Organisations like the railway booking system handle large volumes of ticket sales, but the demand is distributed over a very large number of discrete events. When it comes to a sporting tournament, where the demand for tickets far outstrips the supply, queues must be built, criteria adopted, including lottery, to choose who can be accommodated, and transparency and efficiency must attend on every step of the process.

BCCI should set up a challenge to design the needed information technology programme. It could fund half a dozen promising proposals and choose the winner to sell tickets for major tournaments. Even those programs that do not make the final cut would be able to find takers for their offerings in less demanding contexts. A number of startups would get going.

BCCI has the obligation to do well, when it gets a chance to host a major cricket tournament in India. It should employ top-notch professional managers to handle the business-end of managing cricket. There is a role for former grandees of the game, perhaps even for representatives of the public interest. But that cannot be at the expense of sound management.

After all, cricket is much more than just a game.

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