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Fans are like customers. A customer is like a God, as we say in the business parlance. A fan wants a product worth spending the resources i.e. time, energy and money. But presently, the product, Indian football, isn’t worthy of spending any resources. If the All India Football Federation (AIFF) can fix the product, Indian fans will buy it.
But, that seems unlikely atleast with its telecast rights.
In the past, telecasting football matches was never taken seriously by our Federation. The attitude hasn’t changed till today. Besides, the marketing concept of the game, TV rights was never been a top priority for AIFF, who always took a short-cut and easy route to the corridors of Prasar Bharati.
So, whether it was Federation Cup or NFL (barring the one or two years in the beginning), DD telecasted the matches.
But, the two-cam shoot concept of DD became so boring and unacceptable from the visual point of view, that Indian viewers were reluctant to watch these matches on DD. It can be an jarring on the eye even for a youngster who has just watch a HD EPL match on ESPN.
Technically, most top broadcasters shoot a football match with 8-16 cameras. So, imagine the difference of quality between DD and ESPN.
Surprisingly, the AIFF, has always been so lackadaisical when it came to promoting the game through the audio-visual medium. They gave scant respect to viewers’ choice. So while there has been lot of criticism over non-telecasting of Fed Cup matches, the Federation took their hands off from the issue.
A recent comment from a senior AIFF official in a social networking site corroborates the fact that the best they can do is shift the blame.
The official had said that AIFF has no role to play in the telecast issue as the parent body has entrusted the responsibility to IMG-Reliance, their marketing partner.
“All rights of all football tournaments under AIFF were sold to Zee sports 7 years ago by Mr. Dasmunshi, the President of AIFF then. The rights were bought from Zee sports by IMG-R 2 years back. So AIFF does not have any control on the telecast right anymore till the end of the contract period,” the official added.
On September 18, representatives of IMG-R told AIFF that Ten sports would live telecast 15 matches of the Fed Cup. Two days later, they said that due to disagreement of terms the contract could not be signed. On the same day, AIFF initiated talks with Prasar Bharati for the telecast. DD being a government channel, they agreed to telecast the semifinal and final matches of the event.
But the official didn’t speak about pulling up their marketing partners. I’m sure, they will never challenge them for their accountability, unlike in any other countries.
I was part of the Zee Sports team which had a meeting with the then Federation president, Mr Dasmunshi. The channel which was launched in 2005, lost the bidding rights of BCCI. So they thought it was wise to take up the football rights so that they can ‘survive’ in the competitive market.
For just one year, the football package from the channel was good enough to attract the fans. There were promos and teasers of the top footballers.
But Zee Sports limited accessibility in most cities meant that Indian football lost the satellite space, there and then.
