Cricket Move Over, Soccer Rocks Now

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Friday is the big day for television industry. Ever wondered why? That's the day when we get our TRP ratings. That's the day where we get to know whether all the long hours of work that we put in through the week have borne any fruit. So as usual I woke up this Friday wondering how we had performed as a channel. But what I saw, just took me by complete surprise. For many years now, the popular view has been that there is no bigger television event than cricket. Everything else, tennis, athletics, soccer, hockey used to be a distant third fourth maybe even last on that ladder. That though changed this time.

At a time when the Indian cricket team is touring West Indies, Rahul Dravid notching up his 23rd test century, Virender Sehwag showing glimpses of his old magic, well people were not watching them. So what is that the viewers were seeing? Hey soccer, the FIFA world cup.

Now I myself am no soccer buff, simply because I grew up playing, watching and feeling cricket. Nothing would give me greater satisfaction that just sitting in front of my TV set and watching a Sunny Gavaskar playing his trademark leg glance, or a Kapil Dev stepping out of his crease to every delivery with a wild swing of his bat, or a Mohd Azharruddin flicking a ball from wide of the off stump to the leg side boundary.

I would celebrate the achievements of the Indian cricket team and sulk along with them too if they ended up on the losing side. But now I find that people are busy lapping up all the action from Germany. Oh what a kick from Ronaldinho! Oh no Ronaldo hasn't got his silken touch, what about Ballack, Zidane and so many other top football stars?

So how is it that a sport, which we don't seem to be playing well at all, has got an entire nation hooked on to it? Have we got hooked on to football or have we got hooked on to what goes in watching that sport? Sitting in pubs, drinking beer, teenagers wearing shirts supporting their favourite teams, the excitement so high that it could almost resemble an Indo-Pak one dayer being played before a capacity crowd in Eden Gardens? Not sure if people would accept this comparison.

But still its worth thinking if we will do the same about other sports too. If pace is all that we are interested in, then will we also be a part of all this action when the Hockey world cup in happening? Remember, at least that's a sport where we have done well in the past.

A top advertising professional tells me that actually it all depends on what the TV channels want to play up. Round the clock coverage, news channels using football stories at the top of bulletins, then following it up with chat shows on football. Every tool used to build up an euphoria.

Then hotels and bars get into the picture. Events, extended happy hours, you name it. You will get it. Is football now symbolic of the new age of consumerism? That's the question, which I want an answer to. I feel it is. Or maybe I am just talking like an old cricket enthusiast who will never move beyond the joys of test match cricket.

(Bhupendra Chaubey is Chief Political Correspondent with CNN-IBN)