Profit E-Magazine Issue 234

CON TENTS

10

10 The HBL PSL is here to stay. But how high can it go? 20

20 In women’s cricket, showing up for the match is a victory in itself

24 With the HBL PSL, all is sorted for the Babar Azams of Pakistan. But what about our Messis?

29

29 Chaotic Qalandars and Icy Islamabad — when sports management meets business

Profit

Publishing Editor: Babar Nizami - Joint Editor: Yousaf Nizami

Senior Editors: Abdullah Niazi I Sabina Qazi

Chief of Staff & Product Manager: Muhammad Faran Bukhari I Assistant Editor: Momina Ashraf

Editor Multimedia: Umar Aziz - Video Editors: Talha Farooqi I Fawad Shakeel

Reporters: Ariba Shahid I Taimoor Hassan l Shahab Omer l Ghulam Abbass l Ahmad Ahmadani l Muhammad Raafay Khan

Shehzad Paracha l Aziz Buneri | Daniyal Ahmad | Ahtasam Ahmad | Asad Kamran l Shahnawaz Ali l Noor Bakht l Nisma Riaz

Regional Heads of Marketing: Mudassir Alam (Khi) | Zufiqar Butt (Lhe) | Malik Israr (Isb)

Business, Economic & Financial news by 'Pakistan Today'

Contact: profit@pakistantoday.com.pk

Note from the editorial board

How the HBL PSL became a reason to believe in Pakistan

Take a look around you. It isn’t a pretty picture, is it? The country is teetering on the edge of default, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is stalling a $1.2 billion tranche that we need to keep the country running, and maintaining forex reserves is a constant battle. Our political system has collapsed, inflation is at an all time high, and social unrest is settling in with every passing day.

Yet on the 13th of February, the crowds poured in and filled the Multan Cricket Stadium to capacity at the launch of this year’s HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL). From Multan to Karachi and now onto Lahore and Rawalpindi the carnival is in full swing. In its eight years the PSL has become a mainstay not just of Pakistan cricket but a cultural cornerstone that once a year captivates the nation’s imagination.

Successes have been rare in Pakistan over the course of the past decade. There are more lessons to be learned from the past decade of negligence and disregard than there are opportunities to celebrate. Since 2015, Pakistan has seen five different prime ministers come and go. During the same time, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been witness to four different chairs of the board of directors.

Even as Pakistan has undergone turbulent times and the cricket board has seen multiple changes in management the one constant has been the HBL PSL. The rise has not been without its challenges. The inaugural edition of the tournament was hosted entirely in the UAE before it was slowly shifted to Pakistan over the years. Not only has the HBL PSL produced some of the brightest stars of Pakistan cricket, it has almost single handedly paved the way for the return of international cricket to Pakistan. Even more importantly it has become a profitable institution that has been supported and backed by anyone that has come into office. It has largely remained non politicized and unaffected by changes in administration.

The success and growth of the tournament has been impressive to say the least. Consider this for example: when the PCB first sold the rights to the franchises the most expensive one was the Karachi Kings which went for $2.6 million a year. Two years later, when a new team for Multan was added, the franchise was sold for a whopping $5.2 million. When the Multan franchise changed ownership again a year later, its value had gone up to $6.35 million a year.

The biggest reason behind this success has been consistent patronage by four parties: the cricket board, the sponsors, the franchise owners, and most importantly the fans. The board has turned the tournament into a major cash cow for itself. Sponsors like HBL, which recently extended its contract for the title sponsorship of the league until 2025 for $22.5 million, have stood by the tournament through delicate turns in its short history. At the same time, the team owners have shown resolve to keep paying their dues throughout despite not making profits for the initial period. Most importantly, the fans and broadcasters keep coming back for more because of the high quality of cricket on display.

The HBL PSL is one of the rare things that are right about Pakistan. This year, the tournament has faced a slight hitch in the form of the PCB and the caretaker Punjab government hitting a roadblock in a financial dispute over the cost of security for the HBL PSL games in Lahore and Rawalpindi. Such roadblocks are to be expected of course, but they must be resolved forthwith. Already, the cloud of terrorism looms large over Pakistan once again.

Since 2009, we have not just rebuilt our cricket infrastructure, we have managed to build an institution that has the potential to last and remain a flagship part of Pakistan’s calendar. However, this will require continued agreement over the importance of the tournament between all stakeholders and for a mature approach to resolve such conflicts. The HBL PSL is an institute worth keeping and growing. After all, we so rarely get things right in the first place.

By Abdullah Niazi

It was a crazy idea when it was first proposed, and it was still pretty insane by the time they actually launched it. But over the past eight years, the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) has proven to not just be a reliable cash cow for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and a rich nursery for rising cricketing talent, but also one of the few rocks of constancy that the nation has been able to rely on during trying times.

Since 2015 the HBL PSL’s brand valuation has risen to dizzying highs against all odds. Yet all is not hunky-dory in the world of franchise T20 cricket. Over the course of the past few weeks Profit reached out to and held extensive interviews with board officials, the PCB chairman, cricket writers, advertisers, and the franchise owners.

Some of them spoke on the record and quite openly. Others were more hesitant but echoed similar sentiments. Our findings were two pronged. The first discovery was that franchise owners continue to want changes made in the financial and revenue sharing model of the league. Some of the larger teams are banking on the fact that the league will eventually adopt a regional revenue model where each team collects the profits from their respective regions. Meanwhile the PCB is not so keen on ceding control of the pursestrings.

This, of course, is not a cause for alarm. Negotiations between regulators and owners in the world of franchise sport are commonplace. But it is worth dissecting the HBL PSL to see how it works and makes money. And that is what brings us to our second and more heartening finding: that despite all odds the tournament continues to attract money from fans, advertisers and broadcasters that have found it valuable because of the high quality of cricket it brings to the table.

Even as Pakistan stares down the IMF to try and avoid default, the federation finds itself in the midst of multiple constitutional crises, and the board and the franchises are not quite

on the same page the crowds are still packing the stadiums and people are still watching at home on television. But it is worth asking the question, how big can the HBL PSL get, and what does the immediate future look like?

A roll of the dice

Let’s take a step back to 2015. The dollar was at 110, we were in the ‘good’ part of Darnomics, the country’s political system was held together by duct

tape but it hadn’t yet collapsed the way it has now, and the country’s security situation had improved significantly. At the same time, only six years had passed since the devastating terror attack on the tour bus of the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team and no one was visiting to come to Pakistan to play cricket.

In such an environment, introducing a franchise cricket tournament in Pakistan seemed a folly to most. The inaugural edition of the league was entirely hosted in the UAE. Security issues meant there was very little certainty as to when matches would start being played in Pakistan and macroeconomic instability also made the prospect of the league a risky one. Yet at the same time there was also a huge opportunity. Pakistan is a country of 220 million people where there is really only one sport that is both played and watched: cricket. With a vast dearth of entertainment, a franchise T20 tournament had the market to make it big in the country. While most gamblers would have backed out in 2015, there were at least three stakeholders that rolled the dice and went all in. The first was the cricket board, in whose natural interest it was to make the tournament work. Then

came the advertisers that put in the money and finally the team owners that bought the rights to the franchises.

“For us Pakistan, the country, the people, the market, is full of opportunities. So if you take the long term view that’s what it really is. It is not that we are not aware of the risk, but the long term opportunities outweigh the risk of the matter. Now that we have 8 years behind us, looking back, that decision to step in at a time where people thought it was a foregone conclusion was a good one. Right now you would say of course you should not have missed it but that is a benefit of hindsight,” says Ali Habib, Chief Marketing and Communications officer at HBL — the title sponsor of the HBL PSL.

Back then the PCB sold the rights to five franchise teams that would play the tournament for $93 million for a 10 year period. The most expensive team to be sold was Karachi Kings for $26 million, followed by Lahore Qalandars for $25 million, Peshawar Zalmi for $16 million, Islamabad United for $15 million, and the Quetta Gladiators for $11 million. Since the teams were sold for a 10-year period, the total cost was payable over 10 years in the form of a yearly franchise fee equivalent to 10% of the team’s value. Essentially, each franchise owner would rent out the use of the franchise for the year for a fixed price.

The reason Karachi and Lahore were more expensive while Islamabad, Peshawar, and Quetta were cheaper in comparison was because of the sizes of the cities. The idea was that each team would be able to become a ‘brand’ of the corresponding city. On top of this there was the understanding that eventually each franchise would have financial control corresponding to their respective city as well — which is a common practice in most franchise sports.

And over time it became clear that the HBL PSL was worth some serious money. Every year the tournament brings home the bacon for the PCB by selling tickets, selling sponsorships,

and selling the broadcasting rights to the matches. In 2022, the cricket board sold the local broadcasting rights for the tournament to a consortium of ARY and PTV for the hefty price of $25 million for a two year period. Similarly, the title sponsorship, which has belonged to HBL since the beginning of the tournament, was sold to them again until 2025 for nearly $22.5 million (and this is only the title sponsorship, which means the revenue from other sponsors has not been factored in.) For the last edition of the

tournament, the cricket board reported a profit worth Rs 2 billion which was split between the teams. However, while the tournament has largely been profitable, the teams have not made as much money as the board and haven’t been very happy about this revenue sharing system.

The kinks in the system

This is where things are a little rigged in favour of the board and a little against the teams (at least in the short-run). Back when the teams had first been sold by the PCB, it had been agreed that at least 80 percent of the revenue from the broadcast rights would be split equally among the five PSL franchises. The remaining 20 percent will go to the PCB. Similarly at least 50 percent of the revenue from the sponsorship rights will be shared among the franchises and the PCB will utilise the other 50 percent.

That might make it seem like the PCB is taking less money but in fact the 80% split between the teams came down to less of a cut than the board. On top of that, the teams were also paying their annual franchise fees to the tune of millions of dollars which was pocketed by the board. Separately, they also have to pay the players on their squads. Very quickly the HBL PSL franchises started running losses.

It is not that we are not aware of the risk, but the long term opportunities outweigh the risk of the matter. Now that we have 8 years behind us, looking back, that decision to step in at a time where people thought it was a foregone conclusion was a good one. Right now you would say of course you should not have missed it but that is a benefit of hindsight,”

Ali Habib, Chief Marketing and Communications officer at HBL

In the first year, for example, the HBL PSL turned a profit of $2.6 million. Out of this, the PCB pocketed $0.6 million while the rest of the $2 million were divided equally among the five sides – leaving each side with a mere $0.4 million. The sides all ended up making a significant loss in the first year. And how could they expect not to? In the first edition of the PSL only, the Karachi Kings for example had paid $2.6 million as their franchise fee. This was the same amount as the entirety of the PSL made. Not only did the Karachi Kings only recover $0.6 million of their initial investment for the first year, they also had to spend more on top of that.

The tournament was bringing in more revenue than it was spending money, but the franchise fees were too high for any of the teams to even come close to breaking even. While moving the tournament to Pakistan would bring in more sponsorship revenue as well as reduce costs by no longer needing to rent a venue to play, these changes would not have the sort of impact that would bring these teams out of their losses. The problem was also becoming particularly stark because all of the local owners of the teams in Pakistan were making money in the Pakistani rupee – which was fast plummeting in value –while the PCB demanded that franchise fees be paid in dollars. Effectively this meant that their fixed yearly fee was also rising.

The negotiations begin

Now here is where things stood. In 2015, franchise owners took a chance on the HBL PSL and paid high fees to get the rights to their teams. In exchange, they knew it would be a slow trek to profitability but they expected some level of leniency from the PCB and initial returns on their investment. However, the PCB continued to operate a ship that benefited them over anyone else. This obviously wasn’t going to fly for long. On top of this, very little progress was made in terms of introducing a system whereby the teams could control the revenue from their respective cities.

Essentially, under this model Lahore Qalandars would be responsible for and earn the money from all matches held at and broadcast from the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. “It makes

natural sense to take ownership of the region. It gives the franchises more of an opportunity to root themselves in their region and also more avenues to try and monetize their investments,” explains Osman Samiuddin, senior editor at ESPN Cricinfo.

In January 2019, the extent to which the teams were making losses became apparent when the PCB accidentally leaked a document revealing just how much money the teams had lost in the first two editions of the tournament. Cricinfo reported that the PSL franchises incurred losses ranging from $1.4 million to $5 million each in the first two seasons of the league –leading them to demand financial restructuring of the league as well as tax exemptions from the Pakistan government.

The knowledge of the losses suddenly became apparent not just to the public, but also that the teams knew just how deep the others were in it as well. While it was embarrassing in the moment, it also helped all of the owners realise that they could work together towards

revising the existing business model. Within a year, in September 2020, all six of the teams banded together and sued the PCB.

As pressure mounted with the court case the teams also began to dilly dally. They began making payments late, blaming the dividends they got from the league. Karachi and Lahore in particular became serial offenders, and the PCB ended up having to pay a lot of expenses out of pocket that they should have been paying from the money they were getting from the teams. Even when it comes to paying the players, when the PSL draft happens, the PCB pays the players and then collects the money from the franchises later or cuts it from the revenue pool before declaring its final profits.

As the PCB found itself a little weary from carrying the weight, new Chairman Ramiz Raja stepped in. A former cricket player with a stronger resolve than the more meek Ehsan Mani, Raja sat the franchises down. This was the first thing that was different – under the Mani negotiations were done half-heartedly at times not because of the Chairman but because it was not a big priority. Ramiz on the other hand sat the teams down and gave them many of the things they wanted. He also told them to take it or leave it, and reportedly when one of the team owners seemed to be showing some resistance, Ramiz said he would not hesitate to put that franchise up for rebidding if they did not join the PCB and the rest of the teams on the same page.

The first was that the teams would now get a 95 percent share of the central revenue

“There needs to be a serious conversation that actually addresses the league model problem. If we manage to get this system in place there is no league in the world that we cannot compete with.”

Atif Rana, owner of the Lahore Qalandars

pool rather than the 5% they used to get. As reported by Cricinfo, in the new model, all franchises will get 95% of revenue generated from all revenue streams including broadcasting rights, sponsorship rights and gate receipts from the seventh edition onward. For PSL 5 and 6, the PCB will share 98% of the central pool revenue as an additional relief in view of the Covid-19 pandemic that disrupted both seasons. In previous years, the revenue shared varied between 85% and 90%. The franchises wanted the PCB to give them rights in perpetuity but that is not part of the new model. As per the original contract franchises will have to pay an increased franchise fee [existing fee + 25% or 25% of mar-

ket value of the franchise, whichever is higher]. The most important concession, however, has been that the price of the dollar exchange rate has been fixed. The price of franchises when they were auctioned was set in US dollars. In 2015, when the first five franchises came on board, the rate was PKR 105 to a dollar. Currently, the rate of a US dollar hovers above PKR 170. The agreed offer means the PCB will peg the US dollar to the day the new agreement is signed. International players will continue to be paid in USD, however. In hindsight this was a big win.

Take Karachi Kings as an example. They pay a yearly franchise fee of $2.6 million. That

means at the current rate they would be paying Rs 690 million. Instead, at the fixed rate of Rs170 per dollar they are paying Rs 442 million as their franchise fee.

New edition, new management, new demands

This is where the current scenario heats up. “The PCB makes money each year, and the franchises have consistently been making losses. This naturally caused a lot of grumbling regarding

“We are largely happy with how the brand has risen but have sometimes felt us going from one extreme to another. The PCB made a killing with the Multan Sultans fee but that was probably going towards a different extreme and not the true value that the actual financials and brand value would put it at”

Ali Naqvi, owner of Islamabad United

the financial model,” says Samiuddin.“They’ve been operating in this sort of unhappy state for a while now. A few years ago a doc was leaked accidentally and it broke down what everyone had earned up until that point. What we can gather is that they are still invested, but maybe not every franchise necessarily in only a financial sense.”

This year, there was a massive shift in the PCB management with Ramiz Raja ousted and Najam Sethi back in the driving seat. While Sethi may have a short lived tenure depending on how long the incumbent federal government can hold office, he has been making sweeping changes. In a series of brief chats with Profit Sethi informed us that he had not yet caught up on the “mess” left behind by the previous management. However, in other conversations with senior board officials it became quite clear that the franchises and the board were not quite seeing eye to eye even if there was not an immediate flareup of tensions.

“There needs to be a serious conversation that actually addresses the league model problem” says Atif Rana, owner of the Lahore Qalandars. His team has been on the forefront of the effort to promote a regional revenue league model. “If we manage to get this system in place there is no league in the world that we cannot compete with.” The statement of course is only so much posturing. The HBL PSL cannot hope to give the IPL competition, for example, which recently sold its media rights for $6 billion. However, it is in the better interests of all the teams for this to happen.

“Over the years as the security situation has improved and the tournament has spread all over Pakistan this was all bound to happen. However, there are still some issues. For starters, the security situation is changing

before our very eyes. Then again, what are you going to do about a team like Quetta? You’re definitely not going to be playing there for a very long time or hosting international players. Do Quetta and Karachi then share the revenue for National Stadium? Will Salman Iqbal agree to that? These are all problems that need to be thought about,” asks Samiuddin.

“These are all problems that need to be thought about. All in all, it is a good way to run the league but it will be a while before that happens. The PCB is an old institution that does not like to cede control; they have a very purani sarkari soch. With Sethi in charge, he

may feel even more strongly about this since he has been here from the beginning,” he adds.

Another team owner speaking off the record tells us that the regional revenue model is a demand that is definitely one for the future, although it does not make sense to bring it up right now. “We need to make some calculated decisions about this. There is a lot going on right now and a lot of other demands we need to cement first. However, once the macroeconomic situation settles down we can negotiate this. Besides, who knows how long this current administration is in power for.”

Other team owners feel similarly. “We

“It makes natural sense to take ownership of the region. It gives the franchises more of an opportunity to root themselves in their region and also more avenues to try and monetize their investments”

Osman Samiuddin, senior editor at ESPN Cricinfo

are largely happy with how the brand has risen but have sometimes felt us going from one extreme to another. The PCB made a killing with the Multan Sultans fee but that was probably going towards a different extreme and not the true value that the actual financials and brand value would put it at,” explains Ali Naqvi, owner of Islamabad United.

He is pointing towards the fact that the Multan franchise, which was introduced later in the tournament, is worth a lot more than the original five franchises. Late by just two years compared to the others, the franchise was auctioned off for a whopping $41.6 million – and that too only for an eight year period to the Schon group. However, the $5.2 million franchise fee was too much for Asher Schon to keep up with, and after one year the PCB terminated the Schon group’s ownership of the Multan Sultans on good terms. Even this,

however, did not stop the price of the team from rising even more. Initially sold for a $41.6 million price tag for eight years, the team was now sold for $45 million for seven years to Aalamgir and Ali Khan Tareen. That meant the Tareens would be paying an astonishing yearly franchise fee of $6.35 million each year to keep ownership of their team.

The good parts

These of course were the brass tacks. Very strictly business disagreements that will be ironed out on the negotiating table. The good part is that the advertisers and the fans still have complete faith in the HBL PSL and its potential not just to make money but also to be a positive force for Pakistan cricket.

“The early believers who believed in the games and the numbers have reaped the rewards. And they were also passionate people. Now with seven years gone, at times some of your decisions seem justifiable. At that time? It was anybody’s guess,” says Ali Habib from HBL. “I have tremendous respect for the franchise owners, they all stepped up, like us. It could have fizzled after the first or second year. They could have said that oh it’s not going to happen

but today we are here. We are now looking at scaling and the possibility of more teams coming in.”

“It is difficult to say whether or not there will be any change of hands in terms of team ownership right now. My current impression is that all of the franchise owners realise that they are onto a good thing that they can make money off of. On top of that, it gets you a place in Pakistani society that really nothing else does quite like it. Multan might be the one that threatens to change ownership but they’re also paying a whole lot more compared to the others so their financial feasibility is quite skewed,” Samiuddin adds to the debate.

According to him, there is, if anything, a need to add more teams to the PSL rather than there being any issue of ownership changing hands or there having to be changes in management. “You’re a nation of 220 million people. You had the QEA trophy where Imran Khan forced the six team system to become a thing, and you want quality, but you need way more teams. And in the PSL especially you need more competition and more liveliness. And commercially I don’t think it should be an issue to sell the rights to a team for a city like say Faisalabad. There should ideally be two more teams coming in.”

And that is what it boils down to. The HBL PSL is a major effort that has brought Pakistan cricket great benefits. As things stand now, its financial model is imperfect and very much a work in progress. However, despite all kinds of macroeconomic conditions and problems, the tournament continues to enjoy the faith of advertisers, broadcasters, players, and most importantly the fans. And from here on out, if negotiations are done honestly and with open lines of communication there is nowhere other than up for the tournament to go. n

By Momina Ashraf

In 2009, Saba Nazir from Muridke collected her meagre savings and boarded a bus for the nearby town of Sheikhupura to bowl in front of selectors from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). The young, small-town girl immediately caught the eye of the headhunters and was asked to return again to play a game the next day. That is where her struggle started.

In Pakistan, perhaps one of the biggest victories for upcoming players in women’s cricket is managing to show up for the match. Only 16 years old in 2009, Saba had to use her own savings collected over the years from Eidis and skipping school lunches to get a ticket to Sheikhupura. Her family could not have afforded to spend money on her cricket. Even if they had, they were too strict to let her play cricket within her own city let alone in Sheikhupura.

“I was scared of losing my way. And to compound that was the fear of my brothers or someone from the neighbourhood spotting me boarding a bus by myself. If anybody at my house had found out, I wouldn’t have survived,” she recalls.

Stories like this are rife in the recent book by Aayush Pruthna titled ‘Unveiling Jazba’ that chronicles the story of women’s cricket in Pakistan. In a country of 220 million where there is just one commercially successful sport, the extent to which women’s participation has been

The quality of the competition is high, which means women’s cricket is financially feasible. But the experts say it needs initial injections of investment to work

This has been something that has been very obvious for a while, you need to pump in the money. Because at the end of the day, the quality of the contest you’re getting is pretty good and that means the crowds will come in and there will be a shot at making money too

Osman Sammiuddin, senior editor at ESPN Cricinfo

neglected is near-on criminal. On the one hand, pursuing a career in cricket is fundamentally a slippery slope for anyone. But the rules seem to be rigged for women. From street cricket to official trials, practising the sport is a nightmare for women — a fact that governing bodies don’t really account for.

Despite the odds, Pakistani women have shown a persistent passion for the game that has translated into Pakistan competing regularly on the world stage where there have been rare moments of team and individual brilliance that have captivated audiences. Yet investment in the women’s game remains low and so does interest. The question is, do we need to pump money into the sport to get audiences interested or do the audiences have to come first for the money to come in? And even if the PCB manages to attract investment, what are some of the structural issues that Pakistan’s women cricketers face?

The chicken and egg equation

This is a question that arises about most women’s sports. Whether audiences bring in investment or investment brings in the audiences. From what it looks like cricket is no different to other sports in that you have to put in the money to actually have a quality product that

fans will gravitate towards.

In Pakistan, this is a two part issue. You see, the sole purpose of a body like the PCB is to promote the sport and produce the best quality players it possibly can that can compete on an international level. However, the board is an independent institution that makes its own money and needs to be profitable so that it can spend that money on player and game development. In Pakistan, the argument many experts have made is that women’s cricket is a financially viable sport but it needs to be given the requisite attention and some level of affirmative action.

“Australia’s Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) answers this question. Around ten years ago the board launched a new product which ran alongside the ongoing Big Bash League (BBL). The investors were in losses for the first 5-6 years but the league kept on going,” says Aayush Puthran, author of Unveiling Jazba. “Even during COVID, the investment did not stop when a lot of the boards throughout the world cut their funding. And now it’s one of the most watched leagues in the world,” he says excitedly.

It’s simple, when you invest in a sport it becomes something which people want to watch and corporate wants to invest in. And the initial years are always going to run losses. Just look at the Pakistan Super League (PSL). Most of the team franchises are still running fi-

Even the best players last for just 3-4 years in the academy because they come with borrowed time and resources. The PCB provides funds to the academies for men’s cricket so the boys get a daily allowance of around Rs 1000 which at least covers their transportation costs. Women don’t get that. Instead, women athletes skip their meals to save up for their transport

nancial losses. However, franchise sports are always a long-term investment. As more and more money comes into the sport the spectacle surrounding it grows and so does the audience and its value.

“This has been something that has been very obvious for a while, you need to pump in the money,” says Osman Sammiuddin, senior editor at ESPN Cricinfo. “Just look at the recent game between Australia and India at the Newlands stadium. It wasn’t a particularly great crowd on that day but that doesn’t mean you don’t hold it at that stadium. Because at the end of the day, the quality of the contest you’re getting is pretty good and that means the crowds will come in and there will be a shot at making money too.”

This philosophy, perhaps, has also been behind the idea that was proposed last year while Ramiz Raja was chairman of the PCB that there could possibly be a women’s PSL. The PCB had announced the tournament to be played alongside the current edition of the PSL with 12 games to be played in Rawalpindi.

“This event is aligned to our strategy of making Pakistan a stronger cricket playing nation across all formats and genders. We are not only creating attractive brands to strengthen our cricket economy, but through this tournament are also providing career opportunities to our women cricketers. The more our women cricketers will participate in high-pressure events, the more they will learn,” said the former chairman Raja at the time of the announcement.

However, the project is on hold for now after Raja was ousted from the PCB and replaced by Najam Sethi who enters another stint as the top-dog at the board. In January this year, the new PCB management committee, headed by Najam Sethi, decided to shelve the league, with the aim of holding it in September. The new league - which will bear a different name - will be a standalone tournament with four teams, it was announced. This of course means that the tournament will not be able to benefit by synergising with the existing brand value that the PSL has created over the past eight years.

Snober Gul, coach and founder of ZACA Academy

Meanwhile, across the border in India the BCCI also launched its new product, the Women’s IPL, in which Smriti Mandhana is auctioned for $415,000, a figure a lot more than Babar Azam’s pay in PSL. On the other hand, the PCB announced a women’s league in October 2022 to run alongside PSL, but as the time came the league was cancelled and women got just exhibition matches at the PSL as a consolation prize.

A women’s league would be essential for a number of reasons. For starters, it would prompte and bring the women’s game more to the general public and break the myth that it isn’t as watchable. The second part will be that it will uplift women cricketers that up until now face a long and difficult road towards becoming stars in Pakistan and even then do not get the same recognition as their male counterparts. And perhaps more importantly it will inject some much needed diversity into the pool of players in Pakistan’s women’s cricket. Because right now, the scene is a quagmire of conflicting interests and everyday financial burdens.

What goes behind making it to the PCB

The reality for women’s cricket is far bleaker than what is portrayed by the PCB. Starting right from home, women have to fight to play cricket or reach the ground. In a conversation with

Ramiz Raja, former chairman PCB

Snober Gul, coach and founder of ZACA Academy, Rawalpindi, Profit learned that a lot of women across Pakistan have the talent to play, but they simply can’t afford to. “Even the best players last for just 3-4 years in the academy because they come with borrowed time and resources. The PCB provides funds to the academies for men’s cricket so the boys get a daily allowance of around Rs 1000 which at least covers their transportation costs. Women don’t get that. Instead, women athletes skip their meals to save up for their transport,” explains Gul.

ZACA Academy was founded in 2017 with a special focus to train girls under the leadership of the Punjab government. The academy was affiliated with the PCB for a couple of years but the funding stopped when the government changed and PTI came to power. This is a common practice in the board and cricket academies, consequent government stop funding the project initiated by the previous ones. “From 2018 onwards I have had to self-finance the academy. I never took a single rupee from the girls. Coaching is not my means of livelihood. I have a business and I keep pouring money from that to my academy. But since last year the situation has become really difficult for me also and I will have to stop women’s cricket,” sighed Gul.

For coaches or for players, the monetary compensation is quite less. Gul is a PCBtrained coach and receives a salary of just Rs 50,000. His co-coach is Naila Nazir, who

We used to personally go to matches of various schools and colleges and look for the best players. Then we offered them admission and a full scholarship at Kinnaird College. Based on merit, sometimes the girls would get free accommodation too

played in the national team from 2009-2015 and gets just Rs 35,000. “So how can one continue to dedicate to women’s cricket in such a situation?” Gul asks.

The premise of women’s cricket is the lack of development for support. Talent comes from all over the country, but the selection centres lie only in big cities like Karachi and Lahore, which automatically excludes a significant proportion. “Ideally, the PCB should run promotional campaigns for women’s cricket, sponsor local tournaments on campuses and academies, and scout for girls from colleges and regional level teams,” explains Eman Arbab, an up-and-comer with a keen eye for cricket who hosts an online show titled Double Wicket Maiden. “But it doesn’t do that. The best bet is to get into a team like Kinnaird college’s which pushes its women to national levels.”

The contribution of women’s colleges

Historically, girls’ colleges such as Kinnaird have contributed a lot in women’s cricket. The college has produced many big names including Aliya Riaz, Sadia Amin, Anum Amin, Fariha Mehmood. Profit reached out to Irfan Ullah Khan, the team coach at Kinnard and Punjab University for the last 12 years. Back in 2005-2006, Mira Phailbus, the former education minister in the caretaker government and then principal of Kinnaird College launched women’s cricket and invested with donations. Soon cricket received partial funding from the PCB as well. The college conducted inter-college matches and trials for school and college girls all across Lahore.

“We used to personally go to matches of various schools and colleges and look for the best players. Then we offered them admission and a full scholarship at Kinnaird College. Based on merit, sometimes the girls would get free accommodation too,” said Khan.

Colleges provided the perfect opportunity for rigorous practice and development

We are not only creating attractive brands to strengthen our cricket economy, but through this tournament are also providing career opportunities to our women cricketers. The more our women cricketers will participate in high-pressure events, the more they will learn

Irfanullah Khan, coach and Kinnaird College and Punjab University

Australia’s Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) answers this question. Around ten years ago the board launched a new product which ran alongside the ongoing Big Bash League (BBL). The investors were in losses for the first 5-6 years but the league kept on going

Aayush Puthran, author of Unveiling Jazba

of the player. “Women’s cricket is different. Women don’t have the same problems as men. At Kinnaird, we made sure that the coaches, sports physicians and the rest of the staff were women to understand their problems. It’s only in a safe and trusted environment where a woman can play freely,” said Khan.

Kinnaird college, as well as Punjab University and Lahore College for Women provides trials with the PCB, which begins the professional journey for many players. The environment, coaching and support push the women to keep playing, but the pay is still very less. “I did not receive any pay for 12 years, only enough cash to cover my conveyance,” said Khan, “But I continue to support the game because Kinnaird has become like my family, even though I have moved to Punjab University now.”

Personal contribution and its side effects

Investing in women’s cricket is more a contribution than a job. That’s why women from poorer backgrounds often don’t make it to the national team because they lack resources. In the 1990s, Shaiza Khan made enormous contributions to the game. Khan hailed from a feudal family that had to navigate internal rivalries in women’s cricket to gain legitimacy from the PCB and ICC.

Back in the day, the internal grouping of Karachi vs Lahore factions was intense and wouldn’t let the other team go forward. Khan contacted the Australian cricket coach Jodie Davis to train her team under the banner of PWCCA, arranged flights for the team for the 2007 World Cup in New Delhi, and eventually got recognition from the PCB and International Women’s Cricket Council (IWCC) as the official women’s representative.

What Shaiza did prove to be historical for Pakistan as it marked the national team’s first international appearance. But it also paved the way for factionalism, which exists in numerous forms to date.

“The likes of Urooj Mumtaz, the richer ones in cricket, have destroyed the game,”

blurted Khan while talking about Kinnaird College’s cricket. “She has enough resources and connections in the PCB to build and promote her club ZTBL in Karachi, at the cost of other talented girls from Punjab.”

However, at the same time, it’s only the colleges from Lahore which have developed a clear pathway for selection which often creates contention among others. “Kinnaird has done tremendous service for women’s cricket. But now with other colleges in Lahore, it maintains a monopoly of sorts. There’s a fair argument many cricket fans have brought forward, why were players like Sidra Amin pushed over Javeria Khan’s opening spot in the T20 squad?

The selection process is unclear and marred by limited recruitment channels,” said Arbab in talking about the overall development of women’s cricket.

When the authorities resign from their responsibilities, other stakeholders have to step in. This hinges on the long-term development of the game, something which is very evident in different eras of men’s cricket as well. With the exhibition matches set to take place on 8th, 10th and 12th of March, it promises to bring a larger recognition from the ordinary public which one can hope will bring some transparency in the system as well. n

By Shahnawaz Ali

An almost fairytale-like redemption story unfolded for the global football star Lionel Messi, and his men in the Lusail Stadium. Waves of joy ran over the economically trouble-stricken streets of Buenos Aires as the proverbial GOAT lifted the most coveted trophy in the sport. As dreamy as the scenes were in Lusail Stadium, a mere dream is what that trophy is, for a majority of the countries in the world.

For example, Pakistan. Apart from their mutual love for the IMF and a recurring economic turmoil, there are not a lot of

similarities between Pakistan and the current champions Argentina. And then there is football. It would be no short of an obnoxious claim, to say that the passion for football that the Argentinians have is even comparable to that of Pakistanis. It is also important to note here, that the population of the entire nation of Argentina is north of 45 million. That is almost 20% of the population of Pakistan.

Pakistan’s performances have been mediocre at the global level of football. FIFA also suspended the licence of Pakistan Football Federation in April 2021, following the undue interference of third parties. The suspension was taken back in June 2022, but for football fans of Pakistan, the future of national football has always been considered unpromising.

We have seen how the PCB created a cricket league in tough times and turned it into a brand. The HBL PSL has successfully become, not only self-sustaining, but also a highly profitable entity. But it is like com-

paring apples and oranges if one compares football with cricket. What then, is the future of football?

The sheer passion that exists for cricket is unmatched. In a country where a cricketing career can be grounds for political candidacy, no other sport can be as famous. And that polarity between cricket and other sports is also translated in numbers. Most of the olympics sports in Pakistan are currently in shambles, be it hockey, football or athletics. Apart from the obvious management lapses and incompetences, a big reason that is often stated for this, is the lack of interest from the sponsors’ side.

What then, makes a sport interesting from a sponsorship perspective? Does football have that potential? This scribe makes the case that it does, by looking at the holy trinity for commercial sporting success. The talent, the viewership and the sponsors.

The talent

At the risk of resounding an age-old cliche, there is (presumably) a lot of talent within Pakistan. Almost every Pakistani wholeheartedly believes in this fact and the same is the case with football.

In October 2022, a month before the official FIFA world cup 2022, a small tournament called the Street Child Football World Cup also took place in Qatar. The number of people following the event was small however, a young team of boys, from lyari, defeated the Brazilian team in the semi finals to secure their place in the finals. The Pakistan team eventually stood second in the tournament out of 26 other countries. This was the second time that a young Pakistani team was able to shine amongst their counterparts at the global stage. However, between this period of raw talent up till athletic development, Pakistan drops from the second place globally, all the way down to 190th. Talking to Profit, blogger

“This nexus of sports and business is a global phenomenon, whether you look at any sport. The template is there, The legacy is there, all you require is faith. The HBL PSL has set a template for corporate Pakistan and showed that there is a future”

Ali Habib, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at HBL

and journalist, Bilal Hassan said that, It is almost criminal that the kids from Lyari have not made it big. There is a sheer lack of resources and platforms. And then there is also a class factor. If a team of boys from the central/urban Karachi had achieved such accolades, it would have gotten a much better recognition.

Talking on the subject of talent, Mr. Hassan said that, “There is no question about the presence of this talent. We have various communities like Lyari, Hazara and other cultures, of which football is an integral part. Not to mention the footprint of the sport in Urban areas. It is almost the second most popular sport in Pakistan after cricket.”

Why is the Pakistan Football Federation unable to tap into this talent? Why is it unable to develop these players? It is difficult to narrow it down to one factor, but thanks to free markets, we don’t have to. Anything that offers money, brings in a great number of people. It is a question of incentive, which increases when money gets involved.

It is simpler for a child. A child is able to play because he doesn’t need to earn money. When grown up, that very child’s passion for the sport is bound to erode, provided that money is not a part of the equation. And such a burden is almost too big for the national exchequer to bear. The whole world has come around the fact that public engagement in sports is better observed through commercial channels. The board doesn’t need to get peanuts approved in funds, when corporate entities are willing to pay for the upscaling of talent. No matter the intention of the bureaucracy, the modern sport requires resources that Prime Minister Youth Initiatives might be able to facilitate, but simply cannot fulfil.

The viewership

Asimple incidence of the ARY digital becoming a licensee of the broadcasting rights of the FIFA world cup through viacom18, is enough to indicate that there is a market. FIFA sold broadcasting rights for the Indian subcontinent in excess of 4.5 billion INR to Viacom 18.

Every year, Pakistani sports channels race each other to get the broadcasting rights of major football leagues, including the Premier League and La Liga to name a few. Fans from gilgit baltistan, down to the streets of Makran and Lyari tune in to watch their favourite teams in action. But is this viewership comparable to what it could be for a home grown league? Afterall, apart from all the hue and cry of fandom, it is mostly the quality of the games that attracts the fans.

That is probably the most tricky part of this question, and that is where different rivalries can be salvaged. Lahore Qalandars, an established HBL PSL franchise, recently

announced that they will sponsor a hockey series between Karachi and Lahore determining which side is better. The effort was in line with restoring the national game’s lost spark. Hence, established HBL PSL franchises which already have profound histories of being rivals, face off, this time in a different sport.

And that is just one of the examples. The already prevalent departmental football is a no brainer. The current Pakistan Premier League under the PFF has 16 department level teams under it. The league’s structure is equivalent to the Quaid e Azam trophy or the FC trophy in cricket. It was barely successful in cricket for the number of years that it was followed. But the structure lacks the vitality that sparks commercial interest. And it is time the PFF, much like the PCB in 2016, realises that there is far more on offer than departmental employment and a rank on the BPS-scale.

The sponsorship

Sponsors go where the eyeballs go. The demographic of people that follow football, is a target market for a lot of products and companies. Not to mention the modality of the boards and franchises play the biggest roles in this regard. Pakistan houses most of the brands that are the official partners of FIFA itself. And mostly the sponsorships are synonymous to the brand of a league, at inception.

When asked about the possibility of sponsorships, the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at HBL, Mr. Ali Habib said that, “This nexus of sports and business is a global phenomenon, whether you look at any sport. The template is there, The legacy is there, all you require is faith. The HBL PSL has set a template for corporate Pakistan and showed that there is a future.”

He claimed that there is Return on Investment also if someone wants to calculate it, but that ROI is not obtained in the short term. Corporates have to have faith and come in with at least a medium term goal, if not a long term goal.

“We are the 6th most populous country in the world. When you are so big, there is a huge appetite, in sheer numbers, of people who can step in to enjoy a certain sport. All you have got to do is have faith”, remarked Mr. Habib.

The Indian model

Shortly after the Pakistan Football Federation was suspended from FIFA, The Indian Federation was also suspended . But their board could not care less. During the last 8 years, the Indian team has jumped more than 60 places in the international rankings. The reason, Indian Super League, or rather, the Hero Indian Super League. After

the commercial success of IPL, India realised that leagues were the place where the big bucks were at. That is when they started this league in 2014.

As of today, the cumulative valuation of all the Hero ISL teams is more than €48 million or around 4 billion Indian Rupees. Leading brands in India compete for a spot on the Jerseys of ISL players and the Hero Indian Super League is a profitable league, despite the Indian national football being the 106th ranked in the world. All of the Indian National players are a part of the league and new prospects follow closely in their footsteps. Not only has it helped build an appetite, it has built stardom for some of these players, improving the sport as a by-product.

The Indian example is perfect to explain how the sport is good business, despite international suspensions and an apparent lack in quality. Eventually, they will get to “the big leagues”. Currently players of diverse nationalities are playing in the ISL, from Moroccan to Greek to Scottish players. If Al-Nasser can buy Cristiano Ronaldo today, there is nothing stopping Mumbai City FC to reel in, say, a Mo Salah, in the next 10 years.

Conclusion

Pakistan is a sports loving nation. On top of that, there is a great shortfall of entertainment. The diverse gene pools across provinces also affords Pakistan the luxury to produce sportsmen. And even though cricket is a good sport, diversity in sports is always desirable for any country that aims to project a soft international image.

There is a long road to be travelled if one talks about the possibility of commercial football in Pakistan, if not a league, maybe tournaments? If not that, then maybe talent hunts? But to discard the possibility of football being a commercial sport, is not a choice. Afterall, it is the largest commercial sport in the world.

There is a lot of blame to be placed on the state institutions in this regard, and there is a widespread consensus on that. To begin with, it is almost impossible to communicate with the PFF, even for the purpose of this scribe. And it is not that the people have not come up with non-centralized solutions before. The effort however, has never been a collaborative one.

Never have the market forces looked at football with the same interest. If a team from the Swindon Town Football Club in the UK can sponsor some boys from lyari to train them, if India can make a league out of football, and if the US can use the little amount of indians and Pakistanis, as a big enough fanbase, to make a cricket league of its own, then pakistan can most definitely tap into the commercial potential of football. n

Chaotic Qalandars and Icy Islamabad — when sports management meets business

By Abdullah Niazi

This is the story of two interviews. The first was with Ali Naqvi, the owner of the Islamabad United franchise of the HBL PSL. The second was with Atif Rana, the CEO of Lahore Qalandars.

Both men represent two extremes of how the business of sport is managed in the HBL Pakistan Super League. On the one side is Mr Naqvi. The high-flying international businessman who spent 20 years of his career at the Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse has spent decades as a key advisor to governments, corporates and global investors in the dramatic transformation of the economies. No stranger to making cool decisions under pressure, his style of business has given shape to a team that is cool and calculated. On the other side are the Rana brothers flanked by coach Aqib Javed. At the Qalandars High Performance Centre near Jalo where Profit interviewed the Qalandars team, there was an environment of what can only be described as chaotic good.

It might have gone unnoticed by the casual watcher of the HBL PSL, but the leadup to this year’s tournament had as part of it a brief social media war between the Islamabad United and Lahore Qalandars franchises. Islamabad United had, as part of their social media campaign, run a twitter campaign under the hashtag “#DimaghSe” — which was supposed to represent the calculated, logical, near mathematical approach to cricket that has been the hallmark of Islamabad United over the past few years. Lahore had responded with the hashtag “DilSe” — representing their more heart-on-sleeve maverick ethos and team spirit.

These are all of course objective observations. How these approaches to management and business translate onto the field aren’t quite a linear equation. What we do know is that Islamabad United has gained a reputation for being the team with a plan which most utilises data in the style of American sports and where analysts are King over captain and

coach. Lahore, on the other hand, is the team with “heart” — where decisions don’t always make sense but sometimes end up providing inspired moments of brilliance. The team, in a way, which is closest to being a family. That at least is what they have built their brand around.

More than anything else, these two differing styles of management and as a result gameplay have shown the many different methodologies and philosophies to success in T20 cricket and in sports franchise management.

“I feel like Islamabad United is an outlier in the way that it is run. You could I suppose say that Multan Sultans have tried to adopt a similar kind of approach in recent years but perhaps not with the same interest. Lahore, Karachi, and Peshawar have a different approach — they are trying to build their brand around personalities and stories,” explains Osman Samiuddin. “I think the really good thing about the PSL is that there have been seven editions, and there are six teams all of

which have at some point or the other won the tournament. That means this is a fairly balanced tournament and that means there are all of these different ways of succeeding.”

“At the end of the day the reality is that if you have the talent and the vibes you will win. If you have Shaheen Afridi in your team you will always be in with a shot of winning for example. Meanwhile if you’re part of Islamabad, then guys like Hasan and Rehan have built their entire brand around an approach that has to do with very calculated risk taking. It might come off only 7 out of 10 times but that is usually enough for them to win most matches.”

As the tournament continues to grow and more teams eventually become a part of it, there will be very fascinating turns in terms of how all of the franchises manage their business interests. The philosophies behind these business strategies will in some way, shape, or form eventually translate into cricket philosophy and show up on the field as well. One can only hope for more teams leading to a more diverse pool of team owners and sports managers. n