Originally posted by: Deltablues
"Hardwork" a is stretch when they get most money out of broadcasting deals given they have a 1.4 billion captive market. Surely, BCCI cannot be credited for India's population and rise of cricket popularity after the '83 WC in a globalised world of middle class aspiration and spread of televised sport in the late 80s and 90s.
And for India to have broadcasting profits, they need to play with at least one other team. They cannot play alone na. Big 3 because Australia and England are the only other two teams who have considerable money and cricket culture to provide audiences of their own alongside India matches for broadcasting deals. Also, Big 3 is a term senior sports journalists and scholars themselves use.
Here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/sports/cricket/big-three-cricket-nations-look-to-consolidate-their-influence.html
Basically, if broadcasters earn most money from India matches, the incentive is to make India play as many matches as possible, that too with equally popular and strong teams. So, the incentive to push money in smaller teams that might not generate as much viewership as India/Aus/Eng becomes zero to none. See how many matches India plays in a year to how many international matches especially tests WI plays.
This is not a new thing, this process was started during Dalmia's presidency and was only augamented by the IPL.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/cricket-s-big-three-could-be-only-three-fears-smith-20210215-p572hp.html
Heck, the Big 3 even control the ICC anti-corruption unit so smaller boards realistically do not stand a chance to appeal to a neutral body which ICC should be.
https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/big-3-to-control-anti-corruption-unit-as-icc-confirms-review/
Patriot Act did a very in depth analysis of the Big 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5DWJv1hiwM
Harsha talks about cricket economy here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY53YU-Uq8I
You can see how broadcasters have massively influenced and bulldozed ICC even before IPL became big :
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sidharth-monga-were-south-africa-really-unlucky-in-the-1992-world-cup-1219634
Hope this helps!
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