The man who helmed the biggest commitment for the media rights of the most expensive cricket property, the man who brought the most precious global broadcast media rights under one umbrella has challenged the present model of Indian subcontinent’s most followed sport.
The incumbent chairman of Star and Disney India, Uday Shankar was instrumental in aggressive bids to pocket the most precious India Premier League, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the International Cricket Council and the Asian Cricket Council media rights for Star’s bouquet of sports offerings.
Uday was the visionary to invest aggressively to take the cricket broadcast worldwide to the next level. However, as he is completing his innings with the Walt Disney Company Uday believes the present model of cricket in not sustainable.
Uday has insisted that restructuring of the global cricket calendar is long overdue.
“Restructuring of cricket’s global calendar and policies needs to be done at the earliest,” Uday told the Times of India. “The current global model of the game is fast becoming unsustainable and to not take that into account by cricket authorities would be short-sightedness.”
“Today, a lot of cricket properties are loss-making propositions. Much of the cricket outside of IPL and ICC World Cups do not have support.”
He also advised to restore some king of synchronisation in three formats cricket – the conventional Test cricket, which is losing commercial relevance, the One Day format and the fastest growing commercial model T20.
“Cricket needs clarity. It has three formats and all three are currently battling each other for greater relevance. In that, the game finds itself caught in a bizarre dichotomy that has come to exist and it needs to be resolved,” Uday advised.
“The game has a lot of smart minds, but you cannot consider the rear-view mirror and drive. You’ve got to look ahead, see the signposts and see for yourself how you need to go forward.”
Mincing no words, the Star India top boss said he finds “no meaning” in many bilateral series as “they really make no sense”.
“Fans want more of T20, followed by ODIs and very few want Test cricket. In that, they want iconic Test cricket – India vs Australia, England vs Australia, India vs England. Nobody wants just any random Test matches. But the cricket establishment still seems to be in denial and thinks cricket is still about Test matches because it was about Test matches 30 years ago,” he elaborated.
Uday earlier this week has announced to step down from his position in Star and Disney India and Asia Pacific. He will be vacating his office on December 31 to start an entrepreneurial innings.