Much has been written about the just concluded first season of the Indian Premier League. The macro discussion has concentrated on two issues - the tearing down of national barriers within the city-based club teams and the impact T20 is going to have on traditional cricket - Test and ODI cricket.
But what's interested me about the IPL right from the beginning is that it is a wonderful illustration of something quite rare - a long tail phenomenon that doesn't owe its existence to the Internet.
Before T20 and IPL, there was shelf-space only for a handful of cricketing celebrities - as dictated by the constraints of the national team and the limited number of outings the Indian national team had in a calendar year. New celebrities could only arise by taking someone else's place - and that was easier said than done.
What the IPL has done - as is illustrated by the long tail curve below - is increase dramatically the number of cricketing superstars Indian audiences were acquainted with. This it has achieved by re-writing the format of cricket - a shortened game within an all-play-all club league format where local and international stars comepete in city-based teams.
I am not sure if the organisers of the IPL thought about it in Long Tail terms - but many of the innovations introduced into the game follow the very advice Chris Anderson dishes out for a thriving long tail marketplace - 1. Make everything available 2. Help me find it.
Earier, the players in the public eye were carefully selected by an 'expert' committee of national selectors - now, a much wider bunch of players is bypassing this and getting the opportunity to play on the big stage. IPL might not be putting all cricketing players in India on the field - but it definitely has increased the number manifold.
And what sorts all these players? Not some expert who thinks they are good. But their own performances on the field - innovations like the orange cap (worn by the player with the leading runs) and purple cap (worn by the player with the leading wickets) are information devices that communicate to the audience and increase their involvement with the players - and help them find the budding celebrities.
As IPL grows (in teams and size) and matures in the years to come, the effects of this elongating effect will be even more pronounced - providing the strength of numbers to justify the power law graph above.
But until then, we only have to consider the likes of Yusuf Pathan, Swapnil Asnodkar, Shane Watson and others to know that the tail is indeed wagging.
UPDATE [06/06/08]:
On cue (and also off-cue, if you know what I mean), Agencyfaqs has an article today about the newly-minted IPL heroes finding no takers in terms of sponsors. The report concludes that playing for the national team is still mandatory to make it big in the sponsor stakes - and the best that the IPL heroes can hope for are local city-based sponsors. All true, probably - but that's also because the next IPL season is a whole year away. I believe as the IPL season draws nearer, sponsors will show more interest. In the long run, such sponsorship considerations - both for the players and the teams - will undoubtedly end the current isolation of IPL in calendar terms. There will eventually be a spreadout season that runs for a good part of the year, with breaks.
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