BCCI- A complete business organization

The Income Tax Department of India has slapped a 120 crore income tax on the BCCI because the BCCI has been reduced to just another business organization. Now, this is not really uncalled for. In recent times, it was but only more than obvious that the BCCI has been doing very brisk business earning huge revenues for every run scored, for every wicket taken, for every boundary hit. We are all aware of how the advertisements just pop out from the bottom of television screen reducing the actual play arena to an even smaller area. I found it disgusting at many times- peculiarly during the T20 matches when the frequency of boundaries is very large.

The I-T department has said that the surpluses which the BCCI generates from the matches and the aggressive advertising policies are spent on the players and not on the further promotion of the game- which is true. We haven't quite seen newer venues for the game, the game being taken so much into the European markets where the game is virtually non-existent. Being the almost-supreme body of cricket management, these ought to be the duties of the BCCI. After all, what's the use of giving so many tax exemptions for the organizing body if its main job is just to organize matches and earn profits rather than doing something for the game per se? Apart from the subcontinent and Australia, the reach of the game is very minimal. Even in England and the West Indies, the game has been suffering so much so that, it'll not be a surprise that we'll get to read editorials on the decline of the game in these regions in a year or two.

One can argue that BCCI gave us the IPL- possibly the biggest and hottest thing in cricket bringing so many people together from various nations and raking up huge revenues. The big question is how is that money being spent? We haven't seen BCCI building new stadiums anywhere in India. Many states doesn't even host a game of cricket is years. The current debacle of the match in Feroz Shah Kotla is another case to argue in favor of the tax exemptions. We want the cricket- as lovely a game as it is- should be accessible to even a larger population- even though the population currently is enough for the game. But that is not the point. Just because we have achieved a certain stage of excellence doesn't mean that we stop striving!

I can only hope that the stringent measure taken by the I-T department be a clarion call to the BCCI and they start thinking on the lines of betterment to the game rather than just betterment of the players and themselves. The audience that watches the game deserver more than just matches.