Election Results, Reservations again and the disappointing Lok Parithran

I know its too late for me to comment on the TN Assembly election results but the rivetting NBA playoffs and my crazy fascination to it and also the summer classes which bother me to a certain extent have kept me busy and consequently made this post a little outdated. The Election results were as expected. The TN voters chose the other Dravidian party. In Tamil Nadu it has always been a case of voting against the incumbent party. The DMK and ADMK swap powers on such a consistent basis that they pretty much know that they cannot retain power and hence try to extract as much as possible and hence the cases against the former government and the so called acts of "political vendetta" by the new governments(both parties included). The converse fact should also hold true that people get fed up with the votes of the incumbent government and just vote for the alternative party to give them. Maybe its a combination of both these factors and also a lack of third choice in Tamil Nadu that causes the predictable return of the alternative party to power each and every time the Elections are held. In West Bengal the opposite thing has been happening for an amazingly long period of time. The Left has held power for almost three decades now. I guess they must be doing something good!!!!!!!!!

There has been enough debates and protests about reservations. As usual these debates and protests are proving to be useless. They just spread the information a little more to the common mass. The Government has decided to go ahead with a reservation from 27% in 2007. I happened to watch the interview of karan thapar with Arjun Singh where Arjun Singh had literally no answers for his statistics and perfectly logical questions expressing the flaws of the reservation. Karan Thapar repeatedly tortured him with accurate data and crisp questions and it is also fair to say that Arjun Singh also tortured Karan Thapar with his blunt replies and a constant safe reference to the reservation as a decision taken by the Parliament. Ultimately though the interview was pretty much similar to the protesst held over the countries; useless and the government decides to go ahead with the reservation policy. Apparently if the wise men of the Country take a decision ( good or bad) it is near impossible to reverse the decision. This is a sorry state of affairs.

I think it may not be out of context to bring the potential demise of Lok Parithran.I was one of the many persons who had some hope in Lok Parithran( at least I thought so ). On reading the news about their split, that too so soon after the elections I was extremely disappointed. I did not expect this from youngsters with great knowledge who had left their potential lucrative careers to choose this path. The reason for the split was the normal egotistical issues and each party accused the other side making it look like the age old political parties that people hate. I have heard this saying in my childhood " Politics is like gutter. Don't get into it. It is very impossible for a good man to succeed in politics. Polictics convert good people into bad people" . Maybe it does.

Here are the links to the interview. It may be a waste of time or useful depending on the way you see it

http://home.iitk.ac.in/~vivmisra/arjun.wmv
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~vivmisra/arjun2.wmv

Commoditising Sports and Sportspersons

I have been following Sports here since the Summer of 2004.. I was in Detroit the whole of Summer 2004. My cousin used to watch the playoffs daily there and I also started watching it and began to like it. Nowadays since I have become an ardent fan, who knows the game deep, I found out a new and interesting fact about Sports here.

Sports is just another Business here. Sportspersons are commodities who could be bought or traded at will. The best player can be bought . NFL, NBA and MLB are all big Businesses in their own right. All involve great amount of investments and marketing. All the owners involved are great Businessmen evident from the names of Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks), Howard Schultz (Seattle Owner and a Big name in Microsoft) and many others. Even College Basketball, Football are commoditised to a certain degree. All the respective leagues have done a great job in commercialising and made huge chunks of money.

Whak makes me come to these conculsions? TV channels controlling the schedule and the tip off time of the games. All the games scheduled to be in primetime. The huge number of trades involved in all the leagues. More than the trades, the complexities and calculations involved. A player easily ending up playing 10 - 12 different teams during his career. The referees giving good calls to star players and home teams.The referees in the league playing a different game of their own. I can give a lot of other things too.

Is it good or bad? It is probably a bit of both. It generates a huge amount of revenue which is a very good thing. The money earned by the sportspersons are definitely increased by the ruthless business owners. If not for the commercialisation of these sports, these sportspersons would be earning much less. The goodwill things done by the league. The bad thing is there is too much commercialisation some times involved. Business owners being ruthless and sometimes not paying due respect to a player. Players being treated like commodities to get the best possible deal. Star players controlling the whole team and getting the players and coach the wants. Money being the prime thing to assemble a great team. Teams buying players with huge salary cap.

Commercialisation of sports is not only done here. The BCCI is making unimaginable profits with little or zero investments or marketing just by taking players. The meangingless match between India and Pakistan in Abu Dhabi is just one example. there are also rumors about the BCCI having its own network with exclusive rights ( something on the lines of NFL Network ). The IHF also has started a local domestic league with fancy team names such as Chennai Veerans. This is a step in the right direction, but due to the obsession of indian fans to cricket and the poor following and the poor state of affairs of Hockey (Apparently the National Game ???? ) it is having mixed results. I think if there were leagues in Indian Cricket, it would be a huge hit.

The sad truth about all these commercialisation is that as in all Businesses, there is a huge potential for success and failure and lot of ebbs and flows, growth and decline and sell offs and shutdowns in a franchise. For every Detroit Piston owner or a New England patriot owner, there is a New York Knicks owner or a Seattle Supersonics owner. The business process is ruthless and this is the prime reason we see very few Reggie Millers or Kobe Bryants (People who stay with the same team for the whole of their career..I hope Kobe stays with the Lakers till the end of his career)