Although cricket arose in the United Kingdom, the most prosperous place is in India, and it can even be said that cricket is to India as table tennis is to China, and it is definitely the status of national football. www.biquge.info In India, whether it is on the grass in front of the Prime Minister's Office in New Delhi or on the yellow mud in the remote countryside, you can see people playing cricket in groups, even under the scorching sun of more than 40 degrees. According to YouGov, 62% of Indians (about 700 million and a half population) have played cricket at least four times a year, 85% of respondents follow cricket events through television or other media, and the sporting event that Indians pay the most attention to is not the Premier League or the NBA, but the Indian Premier Cricket League (IPL).

When cricket first came to India, it was only a sport reserved for the British rulers, but in order to please the British colonial authorities, the indigenous rulers of India still promoted cricket in their own territories. So overnight, in the open spaces of the countryside, among the crowded streets of the city, there were Indians playing cricket. However, Indians quickly fell in love with this imported sport because it fits in perfectly with the rhythm of their lives, like the Mahabharata, an Indian epic, which is long but not boring; The only difference is that the cricketers can go home alive and continue preparing for tomorrow's game.

Although Shakru was a sports fan in his previous life, he has always been vague about the sport of cricket, and has never been able to distinguish the difference between cricket and baseball or softball (it is said that baseball, especially American professional baseball, is simplified from cricket), and even thought that it was similar to the gateball played by the old men in the park......

So now Mukesh came to find himself and said that he wanted to buy a cricket team, he didn't have any bottom in his heart, this is different from football, he is very aware of the changes in the future of football, every year by buying low and selling rookie players, he can bring him more than 10 million pounds of income, but cricket he has a black eye, not to mention the rookie players, and he doesn't even know who the current popular players are.

Originally, he wanted to say that I have no interest in cricket, but after thinking about it, this can't be said casually, originally the old Patella said that he is not like an Indian, if he questions the national football now, he will feel even more wrong, so he had to find an excuse casually and said: "In the current half-dead league in India, there is no point in buying a team just to spend money and not make money." ”

"You don't know, now the chairman of the Indian cricket committee, Lalit Morty, has been in talks with IMG manager Andrew Wildblad in London to allow league teams to operate under a concession and create a new cricket league in addition to the original Indian cricket league, modeled after the professional league in the United States.

And the original 26 teams will be reduced to eight, and then there will be a public auction, and Star Media (Star) and Disney's ESPN and the familiar ZEE TV station are all planning to buy broadcast rights, plus there are now more than 400 million cricket fans in the country, so this deal will definitely not be lost. Mukesh explained with great interest.

Despite the excitement of what Mukesh said, Shakru still felt that something was wrong, so he asked, "Brother Mukesh, even if this cricket team can make some money, you won't be so excited, right?" I don't usually see that you're a cricket fan. ”

"Why can't I be a cricket fan?" Mukesh said stiffly, but then the conversation changed and sighed lightly: "Hey, isn't this Anil this guy arguing with me, he said that he wants to buy a team, and in the future, my grudges with him will all be in the game, I thought about it, this is also a good way, at least there is a place for our brothers to settle the grudges." ”

Hearing this, Shakru didn't know what to say, in fact, he could still understand Mukesh's heart, although on the issue of the succession of the Reliance Group, he would never have any concessions to Anil, and the two of them were secretly fighting, but no matter what, they were both brothers, and their mother was still there, so Mukesh didn't want the fight between the two to be irreconcilable, so he would accept Anil's solution.

After thinking about it for a long time, Shaklu did not agree to buy a team, but decided to add a share to Mukesh's team.

On the day of the auction, Shakru found that he seemed to underestimate the enthusiasm of Indians, especially the rich Indians, for cricket, because the gang fought fiercely throughout the auction, and in the end Mukesh spent a full $120 million to win the Indians in Mumbai, Anil won the Eleven in Punjab, and the cement king Srinivasan won the Delhi Warriors. What shocked Shakhru the most was that his Indian star, Shah Rukh Khan, one of the three khans, actually joined the team of owners of the Kolkata Knights. The last eight teams sold a horrific $720 million.

Three months later, the first round of the Indian Premier League (IPL) kicked off, and India went on a rampage, with a total of 62 million viewers tuning in to the semi-finals and seasons of the inaugural season, with an average of 11% of the TV audience locked in each game. The following month, Sony and World Sports Group struck a nine-year broadcast rights deal with BCCI for up to $1 billion.

This situation shocked Shaklu, in fact, this is because Shaklu in his previous life did not know anything about the sport of cricket, otherwise he would have known that what was in front of him was just the beginning. As of 2014, the Indian Premier League has surpassed the Olympic Games ($1.04 billion) and the World Cup to become the second most influential event in the United States Football League ($4.5 billion) with an annual output value of US$4 billion. (The third is Major League Baseball, the fourth is the NBA, and the fifth is the World Cup.) ）

And the salary level is second only to the NBA in the world. In the global sports world, NBA players earn the highest average weekly salary of £50,847, followed by the Indian Premier League of Cricket with £48,243, mainly due to their season of only six weeks. In third place is MLB with an average weekly salary of £35,147 and Premier League players with an average weekly wage of £28,230, they are in fourth place, and in fifth place is the NFL AFL U.S. Football League, whose players earn an average of £22,506 per week. (To be continued.) )