Case Study: KKR's PR blunder of Dada Proportions

It's not the fact that they did not pick Dada that is the problem, it's the manner of their doing it.

A sports franchise has a responsibility to win and choosing not to invest in a 38 year old who does not come cheap, has not been active and involved at the highest level for some time now, who is reportedly a tough character to manage in the dressing room and who has been part (and part-time leader) of an under performing squad for three seasons, is a justifiable decision in terms of on-field strategy for even those who face the media like Ravindra Jadeja faces bouncers.

Yet, a sports franchise also has a responsibility towards its fans and never more than towards its core set of supporters - in this case the residents of Kolkata, and hence without the need of any detailed research - the vast majority of Bengalis. In the manner of their handling of the whole 'Sourav Ganguly's day out at the auctions' saga, the KKR management have risked antagonizing their core base of fans which could depending on the turn of events have varying degrees of negative impact.

Protagonists

Sourav Ganguly is a legendary Indian cricketer who not only established himself as a leading batsman of the game, but as captain heralded an era of success for the Indian cricket team. Affectionately known as 'Dada', a Bengali term of endearment meaning an elder brother, Ganguly is also a significant cultural icon in West Bengal, where he provided the local population with a hero in the cricketing world, an icon in a field where the Bengalis lacked an illustrious representative in their portfolio of legends (Satyajit Ray in cinema, Sushmita Sen in beauty and glamor, Rabindranath Tagore in Literature and so on). In spite of his retirement from international cricket in 2008, Ganguly has remained a favorite son-of-the-soil in his native state, not least through his status as an icon player in the first IPL squad of the Kolkata Knight Riders.

The IPL or the Indian Premier League is a professional cricket league contested in the T20 format. It was established in the year 2008 and is supervised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The league consists of Indian city-based franchises, which are formed through a competitive bidding process, after the BCCI has nominated the cities for which franchise rights are on offer. The 2011 version of the IPL will be contested by ten franchises. The IPL has quickly established itself has a leading event in world sports through a combination of a well-marketed successful product, association with celebrities and glamor and the ‘money’ factor involved with all aspects of the league which makes it one of the biggest commercial sports entities in the world today. The IPL has been valued in excess of 4 billion USD and has been rated as the second highest paid league, based on first team salaries on a pro-rata basis by the Annual Review of Global Sports Salaries. In recent times, the IPL has also been in the news for various controversies amidst accusations of financial mismanagement, corruption and nepotism.

The IPL Player Auction is a specific off-field event, where players contracted to the IPL are purchased by franchisees through a competitive bidding process. The organizing body sets a base price for each player and the franchisees bid over and above the base price for each player with the player going to the team who bids to pay him the highest. The player auction is governed by a salary cap as well as restrictions on the composition of teams that need to include a specified number of Indian players - capped as well as uncapped. The players are signed on a three year contract, though auctions were held in the second and third years of the IPL as well to auction off the newly contracted players. A number of players remain unsold through the auction process and hence do not get a chance to take part in the IPL.

Kolkata Knight Riders is one of the eight original IPL franchises established in 2008. It is co-owned by bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment and Jai Mehta, who is the husband of yesteryear bollywood leading lady Juhi Chawla. In the first three seasons of the IPL, they have been the least successful of all teams, being the only franchise never to have made it to the semi finals. The team however is consistently in the news owing to its high-profile owner as well as a penchant for controversy like replacing Sourav Ganguly as captain at the eleventh hour before the second season of IPL kicked off.

Turn of Events

Going into the IPL Player Auction for the fourth season, each franchise had been given the option of retaining upto four players from it’s existing squad at a certain associated cost for each player. When Kolkata Knight Riders did not make use of this option to retain their best loved star, there was an indication of things to come.

Sourav Ganguly was available at the player auction at the highest base price of 400,000 USD. It was reported that Ganguly had initially been marked to be auctioned off from a base price of 200,000 USD but had it increased to the higher amount on request, a facility that is available to players.

The auction was a live televised affair and was followed keenly by the media and all of India. When Ganguly’s name came up for auction, none of the teams including the Kolkata Knight Riders showed any interest. The auction was a two-day affair with franchisees getting a second opportunity to buy players who were unsold in the first round. However, none of the franchises showed any interest in the India legend. Kolkata Knight Riders spent close to USD 8 Million on twelve players, including sums of USD 400,000 or more on six of these players. The details of the auction results can be seen here.

The Reaction

There has been widespread hue and cry over the decision by all franchisees to strategically opt for not picking up a former India legend. No where has there been more indignation than Kolkata and amongst the supporters of the Kolkata Knight Riders.

• Fans have expressed their unhappiness by carrying out protest marches in Kolkata, raising the slogan “No Sourav, No Cricket”.
• Effigies of Shah Rukh Khan, the team owner have been burnt
• Times of India, the leading English language newspaper has added to the hyperbole by terming the day of the auction as a “Black Sunday” for Sourav Ganguly and his fans
• Past cricketers like Arun Lal former India batsman from Bengal, have commented that factors other than cricket were in play contributing to Sourav’s omission
• Fans have expressed their displeasure on the Internet through blogs as well as on social networking sites with some even calling for fans in Kolkata to boycott the team and refrain from going to the stadium when the IPL begins in April. Chain SMS campaigns are also in full vogue.
• The snubbing of Dada is being widely seen as a ‘humiliation’ and the term is being used frequently in the media and on panel discussions on news channels.

Perhaps the extent of disconnect with the fans can be summarized by comments made by fans as reported in the newspapers. Suhel Bannerjee, a fan who has started a “Boycott Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 4” page on Facebook is reported to have said, "I have switched my allegiance to the Mumbai Indians. Being a Kolkata boy, I used to connect with KKR primarily because of Dada. After what they have done to him, I hate KKR".



Damage Control

Faced with the intense reaction from its core fan base as well as the ongoing interest of the media in the issue, Shah Rukh Khan spoke with journalists and initiated the damage control exercise which has been covered significantly by the electronic as well as the print media.

The strategy has been to placate fans through:

• Publicly acknowledging Sourav’s status in Kolkata and stating repeatedly that Sourav Ganguly enjoys a great relationship with KKR as well as Shah Rukh Khan
• Publicly offering Sourav Ganguly a role in the KKR setup, possibly as a mentor. A similar arrangement has been reached between the Royal Challengers Bangalore, another IPL franchise and Anil Kumble, legendary spinner from Bangalore.

A similar statement has been provided by Venky Mysore, the CEO of the franchise.

Sourav Ganguly has not so far made any comments to the media regarding the perceived ‘humiliation’ of not being picked at the auction as well as the offer for the role of a mentor for the KKR team.

The story is expected to progress when Shah Rukh makes the promised phone call to Sourav Ganguly on his return to India and when Ganguly makes his position on the mentor role clear. Meanwhile, speculation is rife that Ganguly himself is not too interested in the role, especially since it has been offered after the drama of the auctions.

Impact

The short term impact has been in the form of open demonstrations, burning of effigies and the use of Internet and mobile platforms by fans of Sourav Ganguly to express their displeasure. There have been calls to boycott KKR in the next edition of the IPL as well as massive reaction in Kolkata against Shah Rukh Khan, who as the best known representative of the team management is facing the flak for the decision.

It remains to be seen whether the mood of the fan base will continue to be hostile when the fourth edition of the IPL kicks off in April. In the worst scenario for the franchise and its owners, the negative reaction now may translate into lower gate receipts, lower merchandise sale and even have an impact on the popularity of Shah Rukh Khan movies in Kolkata.

However, a few factors may mitigate the real negative impact.

• Time: There is a three month time lag between the player auctions and the start of the IPL. The media frenzy as well as the fan dissatisfaction may be significantly reduced in this time and with the expected positive hype that will be generated around the event before the IPL starts, may lead to a lot of people softening their stance and going out to support the Kolkata Knight Riders even without their favorite player.
• Ganguly’s reaction: What Sourav Ganguly himself does and his actions leading up to the IPL may also have a bearing on the real commercial impact of the current controversy. If he accepts the role of a mentor and makes conciliatory statements between now and the IPL, then his fans too will forgive the franchise management far more easily. However, if he distances himself from the franchise and worse remains active in the media with complaints of injustice then it could add fuel to the simmering fire.
• On-field performance: If the team that has been selected by the franchise starts on a winning note and turns in consistent good performances, it is likely to have a huge impact in getting the fans back to the stadium. However, this remains a double-edged sword as continued failure on the field will only lead to the fans claiming that the absence of Dada has contributed to plight of the team.
• Unrelated factors: Certain factors not directly related to the controversy may also come into play. For example a good run by India at the World Cup that precedes the IPL will create a very positive buzz about the sport and will benefit the KKR along with all the other franchises. On the other hand unrelated scandals associated with any of the protagonists may swing fan opinion one way or the other.

Analyzing the Mistakes and What Could Have Been Done

There have been some basic and critical mistakes made by many parties associated with this controversy.

The least amount of fingers should however, be pointed at the KKR staff responsible for determining the composition of the team as well as selecting the players. While there are enough noises being made about the fact the even at age 38, Sourav Ganguly is fit to play a significant role for the team over the next three seasons, the team management is completely entitled to having a different point of view and opting for a set of players that they trust will help them meet their objectives. The only question that remains is whether the team management had unequivocally communicated their plans of not bidding for Sourav Ganguly to the other departments of the franchise. Given the fact that IPL franchises are as yet not large corporate behemoths with complex organizational structures and their refusal to retain Ganguly before the auctions, it is highly unlikely that such a major communication gap would have existed.

It is the people responsible for managing the public relations of the franchise that seem to be most at fault. To begin with, as soon as they were aware of the management’s decision not to include Sourav Ganguly in the lineup, they should have anticipated the impact that it would have on their core fan base and planned accordingly. The ideal way to handle this would be to replicate the manner in which Anil Kumble’s role as mentor for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) was finalized. The franchise completed the process before the auctions allowing Kumble to withdraw his participation from the auction. This does not imply that Kumble’s omission would have caused a similar furore in Bangalore or that no other franchise would have picked him, yet it shows that the entire RCB team was aware that Kumble was not needed as a player anymore and they prevented any resulting controversy by communicating with him and convincing him to be associated with them before the event.

The lack of communication, or at least the lack of correct communication between KKR and Ganguly is evident. For starters, the mentor role should have been offered in private and in advance to Ganguly while informing him that they did not plan to select him. Assuming this had indeed been done and Ganguly had refused the offer, the onus was on KKR to handle this information in a manner that was not going to damage their reputation.

Some of the key actions by the KKR management that could have averted this controversy are:

• Communicate with Sourav Ganguly about their decision to not select him and offer him a mentor role much before the player auction
• Deploy their best resources to convince Ganguly to take up the offer as his continued association and support for the team is critical in maintaining the connection with the core fan base
• In case, Ganguly refused the offer, then KKR should have gone public with the facts before the auction letting people know of their intent while thanking Ganguly for his services and wishing him the best in his association with some other franchise. Involving Ganguly in this exercise would have further assuaged his fans that all that is happening is with Ganguly’s consent and the franchise is not back-stabbing him

However not all the blame can be laid on the shoulders of the franchise. Sourav Ganguly himself (or his representatives) should have been completely informed on interest levels from not just KKR but all other franchises before making himself available for the auction. The fact that not even a single bid was received from any franchise clearly indicates that Sourav’s name was kept in the auction list either on the basis of little or no information or perhaps even some false information. This is even more surprising given that he had himself raised his price tag from USD 200,000 to USD 400,000 for the auction. For someone to have had as long a career in the game, the people behind the decision to keep Sourav in the fray should have known exactly what they were getting into, and if there were any expectations that no bids would be received, indications regarding the same should have been made before the event, thereby mitigating the impression, that Ganguly had been ‘humiliated’ at the auction.

Interesting Factors at Play

This controversy is interesting to observe from a sports industry observer’s point of view as it brings into play a number of factors:

• Cultural Icon: The importance of the Cultural Icon is highlighted here as even though the team management does not think that Sourav meets their requirements as a player, it is irrelevant to their core fan base who still believe in their icon.
• Star versus Star: In many ways this has become a clash between two hugely popular stars who had all the potential to use the synergies of their relationship to enhance each others reputations, but have through the mismanagement of the situation turned it into what is being perceived as a feud. It remains to be seen what the impact will be on Shah Rukh Khan’s films in the Kolkata market, where clearly Sourav is a bigger icon than even the oft-termed King of Bollywood.
• New Media Emergence: That social networks and SMS are an established media in India is well known (example ‘The Pink Chaddi Campaign’ that was conducted through Facebook to protest against the views of Pramod Mutalik of Sri Ram Sene), but this is one of the first occasions where the Internet has played a valuable role in keeping a controversy alive in the field of sports. Other forms of media have observed the ire of the Bengalis on the Internet and taken those inputs to keep the controversy alive on all channels.
• Professionalism still to be ingrained in IPL franchises: Sports franchises are a very new phenomenon in India and the controversy illustrates that the franchisees lack well organized structures and completely professional set ups. A fully and efficiently functioning organization would have prevented this controversy from taking place. Alternatively, the structure is in place and it may just be an issue of people not doing their jobs properly.
• IPL Auction is an established off-field event: The IPL auction has established itself as an extension of the IPL itself and even though it is not a sports event in itself, it is none the less one of the events in the calendar that generates the most interest, perhaps even more so in India than many other sports. Coverage of India’s participation in the Asia Cup in Football after twenty-fiver years and the Chennai Open ATP tennis tournament paled in comparison to the IPL Player auction thereby illustrating that sports properties need not restrict themselves to the playing arena to strengthen their brand.

Endnote

At the time of writing this, the controversy has not completely died down. It will be interesting to observe the next moves of Sourav Ganguly, KKR as well as their fans. It will not be surprising to see a post-script to this case study with much more material to analyze. It will also be intersting to observe the actual impact on the franchise once the IPL starts, though lack of transparency regarding revenue generation etc. may not immediately allow us to draw specific conclusions.