Stuttering Journey of BPL: From Global Ambition to Local Reality

Dhaka, Jan. 19 — Despite the ambition of becoming one of the best cricket leagues in the world, Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), the lone franchise-based T20 league of Bangladesh, became just another domestic competition.

The 10th season of BPL is just around the corner, and with only two days to go, it has announced its title sponsor, proving how tough it was for the organizers to arrange a title sponsor for an event that was once considered a lucrative venture.

BPL, launched in 2012, arrived four years after the Indian Premier League (IPL), widely recognized as the best T20 event globally. Despite initial claims of being the second-best T20 league, BPL has now slipped into the role of a local competition in Bangladesh, grappling to entice the best foreign players as it did in its earlier days.

Even this year, it appears that BPL has struggled to capture the interest of foreign coaches. This season, all BPL teams are placing their trust in local coaches, several of whom lack a proven track record in the coaching arena.

According to Brand Finance, an independent brand valuation and strategy consultancy specializing in valuing intangible assets, IPL’s brand valuation passes the $10 billion mark, including a staggering 28% increase in 2023.

While the BPL’s profit or loss has always been opaque, the other two T20 leagues- The Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and Pakistan Super League (PSL) – on two different sides of the world that started around the same time are generating huge amounts of money.

CPL began a year after the BPL. Over the past decade, it has evolved into one of the premier T20 leagues globally. According to a story published on the official CPL website, the economic impact of CPL on the region in 2022 exceeded $200 million, marking a 47% increase compared to its impact in 2019. This was the first time CPL’s economic impact surpassed $200 million. During the 2022 season, CPL garnered an overall viewership of more than 700 million.

PSL has also become a great success for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). For the 2022-2023 season, the PCB sold the broadcasting rights of the PSL for over $24 million, with the reported price for the title sponsorship exceeding $22 million, a notable increase from the $14 million signed in the 2019-2020 season-an impressive 57% growth in three years. According to BCB’s papers accessed by UNB, the board has sold title sponsorship and broadcasting rights for three seasons- 2023, 2024, and 2025- for only BDT 16 crores and 35.5 crores, respectively (in USD, less than 5 million).

The success of the PSL is particularly noteworthy, considering non-cricketing challenges. For approximately a decade since a terror attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in 2009, Pakistan faced restrictions on hosting international teams. Despite this, the PCB successfully built a strong brand with the PSL. The league’s appeal has also attracted international cricketers to play in Pakistan, playing a pivotal role in normalizing Pakistan’s status in international cricket.

While both CPL and PSL became global brands in T20 cricket, BPL failed horribly. Ismail Haider Mallick, the secretary of the BPL governing body, expressed his doubt on the eve of BPL that they might not be able to earn even BDT 20 crores (less than $2 million).

From its inception in 2012 to 2024, a total of 28 different teams have taken part in BPL; 10 of them participated in only one edition, making it tough for the fans to get a sense of owning a team and supporting it. Fans have no idea which teams will participate in the next season. Most of the teams participating this year have no established identity.

All the teams that took part in the inaugural season are now defunct, as BPL teams, initially named after various cities in Bangladesh to gain local support, frequently underwent rebranding. The team based in Dhaka changed its name six times, Sylhet also underwent the same process, and Chattogram changed its name three times.

This trend of name changes stemmed from BCB’s loose policy regarding team ownership changes. Whenever a new owner joined the BPL, they tended to alter the team’s name.

Comilla Victorians and Rangpur Riders hold the record for playing in the most editions, participating in seven BPL seasons, including the new edition in 2024, with the same name. For Comilla, it’s evident that it- not changing the ownership and brand name- has played a big role in the growth of their brand and behind their success, winning a record-breaking four BPL titles.

Franchises tend to lose interest in BPL due to a lack of a realistic revenue generation model, unlike other leagues such as PSL, which shares revenues with franchises. BPL teams, including the most successful one, Comilla Victorians, have previously demanded revenue sharing, and the owners have now stated that they may not continue after the 2024 season if the board doesn’t address this issue.

Unlike the most successful T20 league in the world, the IPL, BPL teams lack a core group of players. If you ask a cricket fan about the teams Virat Kohli or MS Dhoni play for in the IPL, the answer comes easily, and their images wearing the team kits immediately come to mind. However, in the BPL, this task becomes challenging. Even if an avid fan can mention the name of the team Shakib Al Hasan played for- five different teams so far, they might struggle with identifying the color of his team kit. The same complexity arises when inquiring about Tamim Iqbal’s team and team kit, as Tamim has played for seven different teams in the BPL. The intricacy deepens further when considering Mushfiqur Rahim, the wicketkeeper-batsman who has played for eight different teams in this T20 league.

BPL doesn’t even have a proper website where a fan may find all the history and stats of the league. For example, if you want to find out Shakib’s best innings for each team he played for in the BPL, the website may crash immediately. (Well, BCB is trying to make a good website for BPL, though, during the last test by UNB on January 18th, it seemed still under construction as some links are invalid.)

BPL has largely been the event of Mirpur. Over the last few seasons, BPL matches took place in three different venues- Dhaka, Sylhet, and Chattogram- but the highest number of matches were held in Dhaka, including all the play-off matches of the top four teams. It contributed to the lack of interest of the rural fans who would have been in the stadium if the matches had taken place in other venues like Khulna, Barisal, Comilla, and other cities.

At the same time, the broadcasting quality of BPL remained below par. The BPL broadcast quality remained unchanged despite changing the broadcasters and resorting to new ones.

Collectively, these challenges contribute to BPL’s struggle within the cricketing world, impacting both the league and its teams in their quest to establish a significant sports brand, resulting in an annual decline in the event’s appeal.

If leaders from other premier leagues had collaborated with the BPL, the brand could have gained enhanced value. Although some franchise owners from different leagues had expressed interest in joining the BPL, the governing body of BPL opted to decline those offers.

“We aim to operate BPL according to our own style,” Ismail said. “We prefer not to undertake actions that might relinquish the event’s rights to others from us.”

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from United News of Bangladesh.

Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).