what do you think?  

 

You concern needs more retrospection than IPL or Amount of cricket played these days.

 

- Obvioulsy in late 80's till mid 90's the number of matches were lesser

- Atleast in India, cable channel entered in early 90's , access was somewhat limited to national channel by majority of people.Every cricket match was anticipated.

- Slowly the number of matches increased , with it the number of options to watch cricket in different channel ( rarity factor is gone)

- I remeber when I was a kid , we used to wait for Sunday morning program on national television , Not anymore , people now have options , a lot of options

- Life as usual is getting faster by the day and schedules are getting busier, cricket takes bulk of your time ... accept it or not , cricket is fantastic game, but the time it needs ( even if it is T20, it takes 3 good hours of your time)

- In general , people have become a lot more hungrier behind money and wealth accumulation. 

 

I know it is a cricket forum , but this is the prescise reason why Football has become a global sport and Cricket found it hard to spread...match duration advantage.

 

I would take Cricket over Football anyday ... play or watch,even a die hard cricket fan like me find hard to find time and watch cricket.I fear for it and its future, when I start having grey hairs .

 

Back to IPL specific issue, I still see people queing up in front of Television showrooms, lot my friends and colleagues follow it over the internet and mobile. T20I or domestic T20 does bring women and few other audiences to cricket, who used to say "Cricket is such a boring and dull" game.

 

For purists, it has surely removed the novelty factor or cricket , no doubts about it. Its not only about IPL , people hardly remember ODIs these days.

 

I personally think that when the IPL started it was something new, people were keen to watch it, India as a team were doing great, but with time people are finding IPL to have far too many matches and also because of two opposite things that happened,  team India having had a poor run of form recently, also team India winning the WC last year (Which is what many fans would consider as the pinnacle of success, and rightly so) may be the Indian public isn't focusing as much on cricket as they did a couple of years ago.

However, when we talk about cricket as a whole, I think the sport is reaching out to more and more viewers and countries, it's been fantastic to see that teams like Ireland, Netherlands, Afghanistan can now step up and at least compete against stronger nations. I think the appeal for cricket is still fantastic.

 

Regarding IPL , as I have already stated, I don't see any problem , I still see people following it everywhere.It is also strange the some guys who have told me about the IPL fatigue, also watch when they get time. Well, even I skip in the middle, but when favourite teams/players are playing I do catch up. If I get to know there is some interesting match going on , I tune in.This was not the case in first few season where every match we used to follow and make arrangements to leave office early to watch it.

 

 

IPL would run , it won't be craze like initial few seasons, but still it would easily run.The other thing I don't understand is about topics like viewership numbers and crowd being scrutinized  for IPL matches , when international matches numbers are damn shocking. That is what I said.

 

The countries who are playing will have its viewership and fan who following while youngsters will take this game up. My concern is not about Tests/ODI or T20I's or IPL or other domestic tournaments... it about Cricket and its Future.

 

Football is going from strength to strength even in nations which were never strong at it. Cricket is really having hard time to spread it tentacles.

 

Beer,Football and few others are exceptions in life .

 

After all IPL is a domestic tournament why worry about its numbers, why worry about its success or failure, it should hardly matter, it is just an entertainment ... a 2 month long fun  ... still it brings so much crowd is an acheivement in itself.

 

I don't care what other say about IPL as it hardly matters, it has surely brought new cricket viewership, new jobs, revenue and chance to many unfortunate cricketers which I appreciate.

 

Call it joke or waste or whatever ... to me IPL has surely put cricket on global highlight inspite of being a domestic tournament. We have clients all across the globe (non cricketing countries) , they by now know that this is a cricket season and cricket is something strange back in India.They now identify it as a sport.

 

Number of matches in IPL has led to fatigue for sure in some way , and every year having tournament looses its novelty, but then that is the way it should evolve. I don't see a Man City fan following all matches in EPL.It is unrealisitic to expect that each and every match should be followed.

I enjoy the league table format as well - makes easy for keeping up with how teams are doing against one another