Firstly fantastic analysis . Probably I haven’t seen such analysis anywhere in the online media, let alone blogs.

Another major point of difference is perhaps the rules… There is no relegation in IPL, while in EPL – the bottom 3 get booted out. That is going to be followed even in the English-Cricket-PL. Perhaps that is something to think about for the IPL committee.

I’m surprised how each team ended up with Sponsorship Revenues of Rs. 24 crores each? I always thought that Team Kolkata had more sponsors thanks to SRK. (Must be some sort of limit.)

@Siddhesh: Perhaps that will happen only when there are a large number of teams-say 20.

Also, I’m sure you would have noticed that the teams at the bottom of the table last year were the finalists this year. We wouldn’t want to relegate those teams, at least now. Lets hope for a Mumbai v/s Kolkata final next year!

Besides the facts stated above – there are a number of other points of difference

1. The sports itself – while football is played on a regular basis in more than a 100 countries (even a 147th ranked India has 5 local leagues and a national league), the same cannot be said of cricket – with only 10 test countries, and a handful of associate countries. Even in these associate countries, there may be the romance of Afghanistan making it from fifth division to within a win of playing the World Cup, but the chasm is to huge to bridge between the top 8 and the rest. Not to forget that football is an Olympic sport, while cricket is struggling to even make it to the SAFF games – the games where the 3 countries which have cricket as their unofficial national games play.

2. The EPL is a 120 year old event – while the IPL is only 2 year old. EPL has been marketed widely across the globe – while IPL is just reaching out.

3. The IPL, as we saw, is prone to vagaries of security availability – compare this with EPL – where even 7/7 have failed to dampen spirits.

4. Most importantly – money in cricket is still very low compared to football (again, may be due to popularity) – despite the fact that they have almost similoar beginnings – both colonial sports started by the British. However – footballers, even the high-earning ones, would seem like paupers if compared with say – Tiger Woods or Kobe Bryant. Its all in the nature of the sport – and seriously one can’t compare apples and peaches.

5. Club vs. Country – this debate is still at a nascent stage in IPL – because most of the players themselves are willing to sacrifice IPL duties for country.

6. Finally – its I vs E – and 1E=~80I when it comes up for exchange rates

Excellent article! Was looking to do something of this sort myself.

IPL can not be as big as EPL, because as far as football is concerned, barring Euro cup and World cup, players rarely have to report for national duty. So football leagues can go on all the year, which in current stage of cricket is unimaginable. Will it change soon? I don’t think so. Beauty of cricket as of now is nation v. nation, not in club v. club Also, I don’t support the hypothesis that test cricket will die soon. Test cricket for me is still epitome of cricket. ODI may make more space for T20, but certainly not test cricket. Let’s see, only time can tell.

Impressive article with some interesting comparison, IPL is really Indian Profit League, can I tweet this on twitter?cheers!!

Ankur,

Comparing the numbers at this stage is quite a trivial exercise, but if you look within the sports worlds, you might find the EPL values dwarfed by the Superbowl as well, which i am sure also you will follow in your 2 honest years at Kellogg. But look here at this brand valuation study on IPL and then imagine what IPL is doing for the game of cricket (http://tr.im/ipldeccan)

Nice post. I want to pick up where @Ankur left and add my 2 bits.

1) One very important diff is the Ownership issue. EPL has each of the clubs as its shareowners. While in IPL its completely autocratic, BCCI has complete control over IPL with each team owner meek spectator w.r.t policies and strategic decisions. Which I think is a huge Corporate Governance issue for a USD 2Bn business.In fact, the structure is worst than pvt held companies, because there is absolutely no regulator to BCCI! Whatever BCCI does in its whim is cast in Iron.Absolute power corrupts absolutely (refer my pnt 3). As we progress into IPL 3 or 4 this needs to be sorted.

2) The Ground Ownership is another contingent issue. Usually the clubs own atleast one ground which is exclusive to the club. Not so in case of IPL. This is a big revenue source (throughout the year) to the EPL business. Round year activities like Ticket sales, ground development and related entertainment revenue is missing in IPL.

Off point, but tangent to your blog post:

3) I think IPL success is perfect example of Power of Execution v/s Power of Idea. Subhash Chandra discovered this idea but Lalit modi executed it exceptionally. Though i must add, Lalit Modi had the blessing of all almighty BCCI and IPL was born purely in jealous retaliation to ICL for power hoarding by BCCI ! Gng by history, BCCI wud not like to dilute its power, and hence corporate governance issue. Tough luck ZEEL.

Impressive post! But on a counter view don’t you think that the limit or possibility of IPL will be dwarfed by the popularity of cricket v/s the popularity of football.
Remember, IPL has revolutionized the cricket scene and it is one of a kind! EPL is one of the big leagues in the football world. I hope I am making sense!

Niceee….

I think a more able comparison would be say between the Baseball league/ Basketball league of America and IPL…cuz both of them are dependent on a game which has a very limited global spread (in terms of number of nations in which they are popular in).

Still..not to take credit away…nice work..

The EPL only started in 1992-1993 and not 1888. The football leagues that predated the EPL are equivalent to the Ranji trophy. The main reason for starting the EPL was to break away from the Football Leagues and take advantage of lucrative television deals. A similar proposal will be implemented in Italy with the formation of ‘Lega Calcio’. My point is, the EPL has risen to its present status in a rather short period of 17 years. Yes, the clubs did exist but what they’ve done is converted the footballing equivalent of the Ranji Trophy into what it is today. Imagine Mumbai, Saurashtra and Railways in the IPL. I don’t think any of us are creaming ourselves at the thought of that.

The IPL is not a competition where the teams have organic growth. A better comparison will be one of the US sports. Similar to the IPL they are based on crony capitalistic principles with no relegation and owner driven models. I’m pretty sure the IPL model is based on the NFL, NBA model rather than the EPL model.

Another reason for comparing the IPL with one of the US leagues is that, as someone above me mentioned, neither cricket nor the IPL will ever have the global appeal of football. We have a limited fan base and we should try and get the maximum out of it, like the US sports have done.

If support for the game and passion were the only criteria, the Brazilian football league would be immense but the EPL wears that crown at the moment only because of the exemplary interest outside of the British Isles. If this venture is to really take-off we need to farm new markets. We should solicit entries from other nations and invite those teams to come play in the IPL. I can easily imagine an Anzac franchise, a British franchise and so on.

Interesting analysis and comparison indeed but it would take a huge amount of time to bridge the gap between the two leagues of different sports.It would intrigue you about the valuations of some clubs in football outside England,you seem to have taken into context only EPL and not Spain’s La Liga where Real Madrid recently acquired Ronaldo for 80mn pounds and Kaka for 65mn pounds.So the fat pay cheques are a norm for the footballers. Heck not even India’s I-League is able to come close to Asia’s prominent leagues like J League(Japans football league) and others.

Footballers play more games than cricketers do.This is keeping into consideration number of matches played in a week or every few days.Winter period is highly packed.Count the league games + domestic leagues + European football(for some) + international football as compared to Cricketers’ IPL(some weeks) + International cricket which doesn’t account for that many days of play as in football.

Interesting post.Good job.

Nice post.But there are so many flaws(Evaluation of Profits of Ipl teams) when you actually take IPL VS EPL. Some Epl teams make less profit just because of their owners own deficits.When compared to Real Madrid ,Barca and Manchester United ,none of the Ipl teams come close .Considering Manchester city and some debt-ridden Epl clubs with Ipl doesn’t make sense.It is well observed ,in IPL 2,all but RR made profit.Cristiano Ronaldo alone costed $80m ,which is higher than some Ipl team’s cost.

Well I wouldn’t compare Epl vs Ipl solely because Ipl is not a globalised league .Some sub-continent(Indian sub-continent) sport can never be a globalised sport.

First of all, u cant compare EPL & IPL coz they’re completely diff types of leagues.EPL is a proper league system with different tiers operating on promotion/relegation basis unlike IPL. But dats not the main diff since IPL might expand in coming years. The biggest diff is dat in epl any club from any city no matter how small or big can enter and compete in the league by its performances . all u need is to beat the teams in your lower leagues and u can climb the league ladder to the top league. In contrast IPL just has a “league” in its name but its not a true league at all. A small local club from ur hometown for instance wont even be allowed to compete for it unless u “buy” from IPL. For ex,Pune ,Kochi “bought” the teams but what they bought is actually the right to buy a team & compete in IPL. In EPL wen clubs are sold, wat is sold is an actual team wid a squad of players,its own stadium, its fan base,its revenue stream and moreover the club is sold by its actual owner. But in IPL u buy nothing in fact. First of all there is no club to begin wid , no players, no stadium nothing. so u r buying nothing and u r paying those 300 millions to IPL for zilch. Also when u buy players in EPL u pay the clubs that own them i.e. the ones they r currently contracted to,or if they r uncontracted the u just pay the player for a new contract and that is his transfer price.But in IPL u somehow end up paying the transfer price to the IPL as if it were the previous owner of the player . So only if IPL allows any cricket club to compete in IPL or atleast to compete among themselves for a spot in IPL , only then will IPL be a true league system and only then can u compare the two leagues. And dont even get me started on the fact dat EPL is followed worldwide whereas IPL only matters in the subcontinent ,or the fact that EPL is an actual football league in that the football played is the actual football rules played for years ,whereas IPL is not the actual cricket rules (its a t20 format completely different from actual cricket)

You got to be kidding me, the level of professionalism hyped in IPL is all crap, they can hardly match the physical, athletic, and sportsmans ablity present in any professional league in the world, they have created IPL only for the sake of money(which does’t even exist, how do u intend to payoff if there is nothing that u have bought execpt for trademarks and logo). I never saw anyone supporting Maratha warriors(hockey) or Pune FC(soccer). IPL has been created just to show off and for the investors to make money.

It is a fact that it has been an incapability of indians to make a mark in any sport execpt for cricket only for a reason that they are the only ones playing it. You want to compare professional leagues , There is no professionalism whatsoever in IPL. modi is trying to hype about what india can do in cricket, mind u no other country is interested. Even countries like Australia(Rugby, Hockey, Soccer,Cricket…..), SouthAfrica(Rugby, Soccer,Cricket… ), England(Soccer, Rugby, Hockey, cricket), (idont remember many cricket playing countries ha ha ha) haveachieved more in other sports, however in india all u can do is cricket. more than half the world is not even interested in it

According to the current rules of Cricket IPL is a pure gambling.Owners of team could show their money on advertisements and publicity but they can’t prove it on the PITCH.Its not their fault,its the nature of this game,beware implenting such a game as a league will affect the investment of the owners and sponsors in future.As far as I know IPL and Champions league 20-20 were the pure imitation of EPL(or any European football league) and UEFA Champions league from Europe.We could spent money in football and bring quality,it will work in the league table and also for advertisement and publicity.But money not going to work out inthe IPL league table,it could work on the advertisement gate receipt and publicity and able to make some profit,THAT IS 20 over CRICKET.Also promotion and relegation not there.BCCI should think about it very seriously unless in IPL future will be in danger.The bowling hipe during the auction reflect this threat.As a true league only performers should has the value,that is what happening in European football transfer market.So in a league if money not working properly, then franchises would think other money making techniques.That is the reason for current contraverscies.