Reportage
Pro Kabaddi’s next raid is for growth
For a decade, the Pro Kabaddi League taught India to watch. The next five years will test whether that attention can become a business.
JioStar
Analysis
The BCCI’s Ouroboros economy
Indian cricket has never looked richer. The money now gathers around the properties that draw time and value away from bilateral cricket.
Analysis
Eight years of FIFA, one last bet for Zee
A promoter family capped below 4%, a billion-dollar claim in London, a shrinking core business, and an eight-year promise to world football’s governing body. Zee’s FIFA deal reads less like a sports play than a final, high-risk wager on whatever leverage it still retains.
Analysis
The World Cup India will not see, until it does
Nine weeks before kick-off, as the world readies itself for its grandest sporting ritual, India’s screens stay blank. Between what FIFA wants and what this market will pay, a fault line opens that runs deeper than football.
Reportage
India-Pakistan: Cricket’s costliest fixture goes missing
Pakistan’s proposed forfeit undermines JioStar’s $900 million tournament and the ICC funding system that sustains the game. Cricket has monetised the rivalry for years. The ledger finally became too heavy.
Reportage
Inside cricket’s $3 billion workaround
JioStar is locked into a $3 billion contract it cannot afford or exit. The workaround will show whether Indian cricket’s decade of growth was sustainable or inflated.