David Rosenthal: commitment

Transcript context

…And we are your hosts. Today we cover the most interesting story in sports–- cricket. Now, when David pitched me this idea a few months ago, I thought, eh, I’m not that interested in cricket. And to all of our US listeners out there, I am guessing you feel the same way, but I was very wrong. Hey, there are 20 million hardcore cricket fans in the US today, as we will get into later in the episode. Great point. And listeners, this story really isn’t about the game of cricket anyway. It’s about how to create a massively successful sports league from scratch, something that I thought was impossible after doing our NFL and NBA episodes, which each took a hundred years to get to where they are today. Indian Premier League Cricket started a mere 17 years ago in 2008. Even more than a sports league, the IPL is a case study in how to create the perfect entertainment product. They took this sleepy, polite British sport with matches that lasted five days and they completely transformed it. It is compressed down to three hours. It’s a high octane slugfest that is all about power hitting and hitting sixes, the cricket equivalent of a home run. It’s got Bollywood glamor and on-field dance performances, cheerleaders, fireworks. And the way they started the league itself was a high stakes auction to a group of billionaires and movie stars. Of course, they carefully studied all the mechanics that made the NBA and the NFL as successful as they are today, and then applied them on steroids.…

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