Flop League...??

                                             

                              Concept of franchise cricket

The Champions League is on – both for football and cricket. While the Champions League of football garners interest from fans all round the world, the Champions League of cricket has, till now, only managed to earn the tag of being a “useless” tournament.

Seriously, no one really bothers about the Champions League T20. The four-year-old tournament, that brings all the best T20 teams from around the cricket world, has failed massively to generate any sort of interest among the cricket fans.

While the UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE is one of the biggest football tournaments held every year, the CLT20 has been nothing more than a minor blip on the radar of international cricket.

For the football Champions League, the fans wait in anticipation, throughout Europe and beyond to watch their favourite clubs lock horns with the rest of Europe for supremacy, while the CLT20 is used by most teams as a season opener.

Even when played in India, the biggest cricket crazy nation in the world, the CLT20 has failed to draw in the large crowds which an IPL game does.

So what really has gone wrong with the CLT20?

Although its concept was originally based on the UEFA Champions League of football, it has its own unique problems.

Firstly, the CLT20 is only a four-year-old infant and a tournament of this magnitude takes time to gather a loyal fan base.

They system is successful in football because at the club level, it has a wider reach than international football. For example, the Arsenal football club has a much bigger fan base than the England national football team and so, Arsenal, during the Champions League, has a bigger fan following than the English team playing international fixtures.

On the contrary, the Indian cricket team boasts of much larger following than the Mumbai Indians side, and therein lies the main problem with franchise cricket.

In cricket, the concept of franchises or clubs hasn’t really caught on till now. For the fans, cricket has mostly been about national passion and they are used to the national rivalries, having been fed on nation versus nation confrontations for years now.

So, the Ashes or the Gavaskar-Border trophy generates much more interest than two franchises from different nations.

Failure of T20 leagues

Caribbean Premier League: All colour, no substance

The introduction of the Indian Premier League was the dawn of a new era in T20 cricket and it led to the mushrooming of numerous domestic T20 tournaments around the world. It was important for these leagues to be in existence because the whole concept and the success of the CLT20 hinged on them.

However, the results haven’t been as expected. Although the IPL has been a huge hit, other leagues have failed to capture the imagination of the cricketing world.

The Sri Lankan Premier League failed to kick off, while the Big Bash League and the Caribbean League, which started off with a lot of pomp and show, created ripples but not a huge wave.

So, the CLT20 still remains dependent more on the success of the IPL teams than the likes of the Otago Volts and the Kandurata Maroons!

Is this year's "Champions League" really a boom.....?

                                            "CHAMPIONS LEAGUE- A HIT or A FLOP"

Having seen the fall in the number of audiences and Spectators in IPL (Indian Primere League) and after the match fixing probe and soo many other issues of BCCI with franchises of IPL the question arises in my mind is that..."Will this Champions League be a success?"

        The reason behind this question which came in my mind is the TIME of the champions league this year. The last seasons of this league were played in between November-December and the last seasons saw quite a good number of spectators. But in this year the league is being played in September-October and this is not a good time for this league because people are not free in these days and for youth the new session of their college starts in this time.

   Moreover this year there are 4 teams from Indian Primere League.This league is named champions league because only champion teams play in this. But here it is not the same. 4 teams are from India, 2 Teams are from Australia,2 From South Africa,1 from New-Zealand and 1 from Trinidad & Tobaco. Whereas in chapions league of Football only top 2 teams qualify for champions league from their country's respective leagues.

       Not only this the qualifying round of champions league this year for cricket started with qualifying matches in Mohali which was seen empty . The winning team of IPL " Mumbai Indians" is not playing on there home ground this year and same goes for " Sunrisers Hyderabad" . If both these teams had played on there ome gronds then it would have made profits for the BCCI , Because the supporters of these 2 teams come in numbers always to cheer for there team on ground.

    Last but certainly not the least  problem in this year's Champions league can be "Weather". 3rd day of champions leage was fully washed out and not even a single bowl was bowled that day and 2 matches were cancelled and points were distributed between both the teams. Weather is not something that we can stop but certainly the time for champions league this year is not good.