The English Premier League (EPL) since its re-invention and re-branding in 1992 has become the richest, most watched and successful league in the world. It has entered previously untapped markets by marketing itself successfully. Asia in particular, has become a huge fan zone and hence a revenue stream for the league. There is economic, sociological and marketing logic behind the English Premier League’s popularity in India. English Premier League’s reach that has expanded with every passing year in a cricket crazy nation. Factors like economics, marketing, socio-economic, globalisation, commercialising celebrity etc. have played a part in popularity of football and especially English Premier League.
Furthermore, tellingly and discerningly there is a differentiating factor for the youth who follow it. It gives them identity in being associated with a football club and being an ardent supporter when they don’t have an opportunity to support their nation in marquee international football events. The coverage of EPL gave the Indian audience an experience previously unknown, and the coverage has continued with its novelty factor by using media, marketing and advertising. Meanwhile the big clubs of the league have branded themselves so as to get into the mind-space of people in South-Asia.
In case of football, India is a world-class spectator nation. The journey of football spectatorshiphas evolved from a colonial legacy to the present state of consumerist branded commodity of today. We reside in the new media age where sports and media can’t live without each other. A sport needs new markets and so does the media. The television and globalisation factor has created millions of EPL fans who are a sub-set among sporting enthusiasts. India comes with its peculiarities, yet EPL enjoys moderate amount of fan-base in a country where sports other than cricket hardly have a foothold.
A Fringe Nation
India has been a fringe nation on world stage if we consider participation; however India does have a huge following from a viewership perspective. When one refers about football in India, its spread with respect to the national team and young kids taking up the game, India is termed quite justifiably as a ‘sleeping giant’. The term has been used with varying degrees of justification for many other countries, especially to those in Africa, where the giant has woken and has startled others in doing so. In China, to take another example, the giant appears to be awake but is seemingly incapable of getting out of the bed.
In modern India, no hyperbole is sufficient enough to capture the importance of cricket in the country’s national life. India, the second most populous nation in the world has a rather insignificant presence in the world of sports with cricket being it’s only shot at world domination.
The fascination for others sports are not the same as it is for cricket simply because there are not enough match winners to root for and look forward to. The successes are few and sporadic and have not resulted as a part of the system but rather despite it, because of the excellence of particularly talented individuals. The national game hockey and football are a very distant second.
A nation with genuine sporting culture tries to be good at all sports and not just one, which a handful of countries play and are actually good at in the whole world. The football in India is in a state of decline if it plateaued and is in continuous mediocrity. But curiously, in such a time, there is a generation of viewers who follow European football with vigour, who are a sub-set of genuine sports lovers. These fans are beginning to increase in several regions of the nation, especially the urban centres. These regions have developed because a combination of colonial legacy, the globally televised football leagues and the market economics of urban centers of India.
Globalisation and Indian football
India has always been a place abound with contradictions and irony. A place where prosperity and penury live cheek by jowl. And as much as the EPL has been a success among Indians, the local league has taken a severe hit and suffered due to the might of the factors of globalisation.
The EPL has came in and along with the parallel cable and satellite television growth has made India a spectator market, while the talent market has not been helped at all. Youngsters watch the football but never go to the football pitch. That there are not many is another matter, but neither particularly does Brazil but the football is played in the streets and sands and there again is another irony. They cheer off field but never take the field themselves devoid of infrastructure to play themselves. Because of being not represented at international level for a very long time now, Indian football fans have taken to supporting foreign teams. These adopted favourites are cheered with fervour every two years in the Euros and the World Cup. The panoply of colours and vibrant excitement of Kolkata celebrating a Brazil victory would give Rio de Janerio a run for its money. The support that Portugal has in Goa is as fervent as in Lisbon. Importantly, this is not just for West Bengal and Goa. There are sizable chunk of supporters for Argentina, Spain, Germany and England. And even though this behaviour of Indians may seem peculiar; fed on a staple diet of English Premier League, this adulation and rooting for foreign countries is not that a perplexing development.
This trend has bearings of globalisation which has brought world class quality football to the living rooms of India. The fans watch the EPL which itself has opened up to foreign players over the years and hence gives the visibility and exposure to these players who gradually become favourites and when they don their national colours for Euros or the World cup, that supported is carried over to their respective nations. Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal, Didier Drogba and Ivory Coast and Cesc Fabregas and Spain are prime examples.
There are plenty of reasons for football to grow but the growth has not been organic and wide spread in terms of local team and indigenous talent. The booming of commercial and spectator market will continue as urban centers grow. India has sold and will continue to sell jerseys for English clubs and the broadcasting rights will be sold with higher rates than before.
