The Shifting Sands Of Fan Engagement In Indian Cricket

The overall purity of spontaneous reactions has been adulterated

with transactional relationships. Can it be changed?

A sporting loss, in any big-ticket tournament, always hurts a team’s fans. When it is a World Cup, it hurts more. If it is cricket and India, it’s worse. And when the loss is big and comprehensive enough for even the team’s usually measured and word-correct coach Rahul Dravid to be lost for words, you know it’s open season for everyone else – humiliation, disaster and disgust being the dominant theme expressed in a lot more colourful language.

The disappointment is understandable. For a public that not just puts a premium on performance but literally demands it every time the Indian cricket team steps out on the ground, a 10-wicket loss -- in a 20-over game that finished in 16 – is unacceptable. When it deems the players as demi-gods and excuses their every excess -- lifestyle, monetary, behaviour or otherwise -- the public also endows on itself the right to scrutinise, label, judge and criticise them. Fair or not, that’s the way the dice rolls, specially in times of an omnipresent, tenuous and fickle social media that brings close and pulls apart the player-fan equation simultaneously and in equal measure.

For a long time, this equation was largely emotion-based. When they won, the public felt happy; when they lost, the public was sad/furious. Yes, there would be the occasional stone-pelting incidents but they would largely be spontaneous and limited with universal condemnation. There were the organised betting rings, sure, but they were limited, underground, criminal activities taking place in the dark with only the ones involved knowing the way in. Then came the glut of fantasy games and online apps, each featuring its own set of players, past and present, endorsing it as a ‘skill’ and ‘fun’ and ‘tactical’ and ‘strategy’. It involved money, it democratised role-play making everyone a selector/coach/expert, it legitimised hedging your bets. And it put a price on the emotions, turning the equation into a transactional one. The purity of both the happiness at winning and fury at losing was gone.

That most of these fantasy games and mobile apps and dream teams continue to be either totally illegal or fall in a grey area of government oversight and legal uncertainty is immaterial. What matters is that they are freely available and advertised, sponsor tournaments and teams and tempt people with overnight riches. It’s a lottery on the team’s fortunes fronted by the team members themselves and if anyone finds that incongruous, they are in a minority.

And so, when the players express anguish or displeasure at what they think is over-the-top criticism and unfair targetting for losing what is, at the end of the day, a game or personal barbs for professional failures, they would do well to also take a step back and acknowledge their own role, howsoever miniscule, in empowering such reactions. As public figures, sportspersons are always under scrutiny. As brand ambassadors, their endorsements always add value to products. But when they turn into products themselves, when they extend their presence into every mobile phone and television screen and wallet, do they continue to retain the sanctity of their professional achievements? 

It’s a question they need to answer themselves.