Why IPL are fixed

This is a sequel to my previous post IPL Matches are Fixed.

The basic that I tried to answer in my previous post was whether or not IPL is fixed. I looked at various patterns in which teams are winning and losing various matches. A lot of people who read my previous post of IPL do seem to agree that IPL matches are fixed. But there are few skeptics. That made me think.


Why IPL matches are fixed ?


Many people believe that IPL are meant to show sporting prowess of various sportsmen, and matches are won and lost based on the merit of the game played. But is that true. As pointed out by various members of the media and even owners of various teams, IPL is just a business for them. And in business what matters most to a businessman is profits. The question one must ask here is does good performance in the field equates to good profit for the teams. I do not think so. There is no co-relation between profits and performance in the fields. Money is made from TV ads, ticket sales, and the works. Winning and losing does not have any affect on a teams fortunes. If you look at first season of IPL (http://www.cricket360.com/indian-premier-league-teams.html) you would notice that only two teams made profit, KKR and RR. While one can argue that RR made profits because it won the season, but same cannot be said for KKR. So why did KKR made the profit, it did not won the season, it did not even qualify for the semis. It started with a big bang and then lost its mojo somewhere in between. Well KKR made profit because more money was made from matches that KKR played. And the reason for more money being made is that there was more unpredictability in KKR matches and more excitement too. KKR was losing matches left right and center, yet they were laughing all their way to bank. Why in earth will they win a match if they are making good money losing them. Even in season two KKR is said to be one of the teams that made the most profit even after being the punching bag of the season. I tried to find the exact revenues made by various teams in season two but could not find any site offering this data If you find it, please do let me know. 


One question could be asked that as same players play for both national teams and IPL, how can we expect that they play fair in international matches and not in IPL matches. To answer this let us first ignore the fact that match fixing in international cricket is not an unknown phenomenon, as assume that all international matches are played fair. When a player plays for his country, he mostly plays for national pride and not money. The money cricketers make for playing matches in very minimal and most of their income comes from advertising. And we have seen quite often how ad money is linked to the player performance in the field. But in the case of IPL that is not the case. No one is playing for national pride, also most players (except tendulkar, ganguly) are not even playing for their home city. So national or city pride does not come into picture. The only thing the players play for is money. And this money does not come to them by doing some ads for various companies, they make money by just playing. Winning is not necessary. As for all the ad money that comes from matches, it goes to the team owners and not the players. So players have no incentive to play better or win matches. They make the same money no matter what and there is also no emotional value attached to winning or losing. 


So the question arises that 
Does winning or losing matches have any impact on anyone what so ever?

And the answer is a big YES. Winning and losing impacts the interest of people watching IPL. Everyone likes to cheer the underdog or boast of loyalties towards the hot favorites. So when things do not pan out as expected by fans, their interest in the game tend to increase. They are more likely to watch the match whole match and even the pre and post match analysis by various so called "experts". But more importantly they watch the ads that come in between. And these ads are the real source of income for the teams. Hence it in all the teams' interest that they make sure that all matches are as interesting as possible. To put icing on the cake team owners also employ foreign cheerleaders, Bollywood celebrities and the works. IPL is more talked for its glam factor then for the result of the matches. The celebrities and the after match parties have made IPL a page three event instead of sporting event. And all this increases the interest of people attracting more eyeballs. 


There a pattern emerging from observing the first three seasons of IPL. In season one, MI, KKR, DC, CSK and DD were considered hot favorites, while RR were considered as the underdogs. But what happened in the end, DC were the punching bags of the season while RR eventually won the season. In season two, odd did not changes much, just that RR too was considered a hot favorite. But what happened was quite dramatic, KKR became the punching bag, DC won the series and RR were nowhere close to the title. If one looks at the track record of DC, they will notice that they had only 56% success rate. Which is quite less as compared to other teams in the season yet they won the season. In season one and two combined, they had only 36% success rate, yet they have a season title under their belt. There are quite a few teams with much better stats, yet they have not won even a single title. If we look at season three, now KXIP has become the punching bag, which by the way was performing quite decent in the first two seasons. RR and DC which won the first two seasons too are most likely to miss the semis and MI are the hot favorites. The same MI which performed well below expectations in the first two seasons.



The next question that comes to my mind is
So what is next and why?

What I have noticed in these three seasons that the team that has performed badly in the previous season tends to win/become favorites in the next. And each team that wins a season tends to perform very badly in subsequent seasons. It looks like a pattern that keeps repeating itself. Before going forward we must look into the role of BCCI in all this. BCCI is the organizing body for the IPL. It has sold the teams for a period of 10 years to various team owners. We also know that people in BCCI has strong business sense and would like to make as much money as possible from the IPL. So how to BCCI make money. It made money by selling the teams of 10 years, it makes money from the ad revenue of the matches, 30% to be exact. And it will make money again by selling the teams seven years from now. To maximize the ad money, it is also in BCCI's interest to keep the matching exciting and make people glued to their TVs. But the bulk of the money would be made seven years from now when they sell the teams again. If after seven years some teams have performed very well while others very badly, BCCI will lose money as losing teams will fetch very little money. So it is in BCCI's interest that it keeps all the teams competitive and equally appealing to the new set of owners who buy the teams. This can only be done if all the teams have performed well in some of the seasons. So I predict that by the time next IPL teams are sold, all the teams would have won atleast one season and been the punching bag in one.

There are three parties who make money in IPL, BCCI, team owners and the players. And the amount of money they make does not depend on how players play in the field or whether or not the games were played fairly. All that matters is how many people watched the matches and how much money is made through advertising, etc. When neither of the three parties have any incentive to play fairly or win matches, I do not think anyone is playing fairly to win matches. IPL is not a game of cricket, it is a game of money where the BCCI, team owners and players are winning and the viewers are losing.

IPL Matches are Fixed

I am writing this blog after watching the Rajasthan Royals batting against Mumbai Indians, when it clicked to me that most if not all matches in IPL are fixed. RR got out for a mere 103 that too against MI. The match has not ended yet but I am sure that MI would easily win this match without losing many wickets. 

So what made me think that the matches are fixed ?

If one look at the results of all the matches of IPL we would notice that teams who are the favorites to win and go to semis suddenly start losing matches while teams that are written off as duds start winning matches. 

Lets start from start...

Kolkatta Knight Riders were hot favorites and they started with a bang too, but as soon as they made their mark in the IPL they started losing matches. 

Initially most people have thought that RR would be a dud team and it started predictably too losing their first match, but after that it stunned everyone by winning 5 matches in a row. Now it has made a mark in the IPL and has started looking like a semis material with 5 wins under their belt. We know that any team winning 7 or 8 matches can easily go into the semis. Then we saw the total surrender of RR against MI. If one look at how most batsmen have got out then one would realize that they had thrown their wicket in a premeditated action. Look at Smith's wicket. He did not even care to look back and simply walked away. The keeper was up even when Pollock was bowling. Even other wickets too look more like thrown away rather than taken by good bowling. Look at the wicket of Warn or Trivedi who could not bring the bat in front of ball even when the bowl was considerably slow. It looked more like he was waiting for the ball to hit wicket before he could swing the bat. 

Now look at other teams. 

MI - They were total duds with losing all of their matches. But as soon as they reached a point where any more losses would mean being out of race of semis. All of a sudden they started wining matches. Both CSK and RR batted very badly and gave a very easy win to MI keeping their semi hopes alive.

CSK - They too started with a bang. They were too hot favorites for the semis. When everyone thought that they would cruise all their matches even winning all 14 of their matches, then they started losing matches even against MI and DC who have been losing very badly till then. And now they have lost 3 matches in a row giving people doubts whether they can make it to the semis or not.

DC - They too started with a bust. Losing all of their starting matches. Now when their obituaries were almost written they beat CSK and kept their semis hope alive. They had pretty good lineup initially with the likes of Symonds but they still could not find any wins. When he left and the team was looking more orphaned they pulled out a rabbit out of their hat and defeated CSK. Now they too are semis hopefuls.

Looking at other teams we would notice that other teams too are following the same pattern- wining teams start losing while losing teams start winning.

So why are the matches being fixed ?

Their is a simple logic to this. If all teams played according to their initial predictions then by the mid of the round robin matches we would have 4 clear winner and 4 clear loser ie we would know which teams are going to the semis and which are not. This would make the remaining of the match uninteresting and the teams would lose the valuable ad revenue as people would stop watching subsequent matches. All teams know that their is more money in playing high TRP matches then winning the IPL. So it is in their interest that matching remain interesting to the people and they have high TRP. Winning and losing does not help or hurt teams much apart from a little loss of face which I think any able manager would know. 

So it is quite clear that all teams want the matches to be interesting as only interesting matches bring good money to their managers. And the only way to keep the match interesting is by making it critical in the quest of the semis. If a team has won so many matches that its place in the semis is fixed, then its matches would not be interesting as most people would believe that they would win their next match and secondly even if they lose then too it wont hurt them. Similarly if a team has lost so many matches that they cannot make it to the semis again its matches would become uninteresting. So it is quite clear that, if any team manager wants to make the most money in its matches then it has to make its matches interesting even at the cost of losing the matches. And I am pretty sure that the last league match too would have a major affect in deciding which teams finally go into the semis.

So what will happen next ?

Now it is time for BRC, DC and KKR to start winning matches else they would be out of the semis race. So they will win some more matches to keep their future matches interesting. By time DD and CSK would be under fire for not performing well and would face prospects of being out of the semis race. Then they would start winning again. Following which KXP and RR would reverse their losing streak. And this cycle would continue till the last league match.

After formulating this theory I realized that other dramas that is being played on and off the field like the Harbhajan slapgate or the firing of Charu Shrma by Mallya, both are efforts to attract eyeballs to the matches and nothing else. It seems that IPL has become one of those reality shows in which their is less singing and more roothna and manana drama. 

So it is quite clear that IPL is nothing but money making machine where teams win and lose matches just to keep the TRP high. I do not think their is much interest in actually winning the IPL as teams are happy if they are making good ad money.