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Saturday, September 02, 2006
The BCCI's at it again
Kadambari Murali reports in the Hindustan Times that the BCCI is drawing up new player contracts that will effectively give it veto power over Indian cricketers' endorsements. If a player wants to sign up to endorse a particular brand, he'll first have to take the BCCI's permission.
This will be tantamount to theft, and the BCCI probably assumes that the players will sign these contracts because it has a monopoly over representative sport in India: if anyone wants to play for India, he has to toe the BCCI line. In this case, though, I hope the players stand united against this demand. Our biggest players have the most to lose here, and Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble should get together and take a principled stand against the BCCI. There's no way the BCCI can tell them to sign or get lost.
For my argument on why this is wrong, do read this old post on 23 Yards, "You Cannot Sell What You Do Not Own," and an even older piece written during the contracts dispute of a few years ago, "A Conflict of Interests." Of course, the arguments in those pieces are moot if the players sign these new contracts, as they will then be willingly signing off much of their brand value to the BCCI. But if the BCCI uses its monopoly power to bully the players into signing those contracts, that will be a bitch. Fight, Rahul, fight.
This will be tantamount to theft, and the BCCI probably assumes that the players will sign these contracts because it has a monopoly over representative sport in India: if anyone wants to play for India, he has to toe the BCCI line. In this case, though, I hope the players stand united against this demand. Our biggest players have the most to lose here, and Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble should get together and take a principled stand against the BCCI. There's no way the BCCI can tell them to sign or get lost.
For my argument on why this is wrong, do read this old post on 23 Yards, "You Cannot Sell What You Do Not Own," and an even older piece written during the contracts dispute of a few years ago, "A Conflict of Interests." Of course, the arguments in those pieces are moot if the players sign these new contracts, as they will then be willingly signing off much of their brand value to the BCCI. But if the BCCI uses its monopoly power to bully the players into signing those contracts, that will be a bitch. Fight, Rahul, fight.
