Ambush leading to Anguish

As rightly pointed out by Nehal and a few others, ambush marketing and IPR-restricting contractual agreements are creating a complicated situation for all the involved stakeholders.

What I analyze from the viewpoints of various stakeholders is as follows:

• The official sponsors are understandably infuriated as competing brands are making inroads into the tournament by roping in famous players with insanely high brand values and thus jeopardizing their expensive marketing strategies.
• ICC, being answerable to the official sponsors, is making forceful restrictions on the IPR of the players. They are probably doing so in the fear that the official sponsors would slap damage charges against them if they suffer losses at the tournament.
• The players on the other hand are under pressure too. They have already signed contracts with competing sponsors and they cannot breach existing contracts. They are also unwilling to relinquish their IPR and commercial rights, which they claim is rightfully theirs as professionals. At the same time, by doing so, they carry the risk of being termed as non-compliant by the ICC.
• The BCCI isn’t in a very good position too, as they are under pressure from ICC on one hand and the Indian players on the other.
• In the midst of all these conflicts of interest, the competing brands are finding ways to promote themselves in connection with the Champions Trophy, without having to pay the sponsorship fee and at the same time without breaking any laws.

Thus, everyone right from the ICC to the sponsors to the players is entrapped in a web of protecting their own interests, thus leading to an absolute NO-WIN situation!!

The only solution to this controversial situation is that the ICC, the BCCI and the Indian players mutually negotiate so as to reach a common consensus benefitting all of them. The players have already taken up the issue of their IPR rights with BCCI. While capitalizing on their image and brand value to maximize their earnings, in the future, players should be careful while endorsing brands such that they will not out rightly conflict the interests of ICC. The ICC in turn has to give up forceful and short-notice agreements and try to get into a formalized, well planned out contractual agreement with the players stating explicitly who amongst them has what rights under what circumstances.

I G()t The P()W(-R!!!

One thing which I found on which most of the participants rightly commented is on the fact that you need to stand out from the crowd if or you need to have extraordinary skills if you really want to have any impact while negotiating with your employers. As mentioned earlier the worth of the individual needs to be perceived by both the parties in being able to reach an agreement.
“Can we learn something from our heroes?”
One thing that strikes my mind immediately is that the unity that was brought forward by the Indian players in blatantly refusing to sign the contract. I belief that this might be one of the primary reasons for the ICC to back down post this issue. Cricket has seen many controversies, but rarely have the players stood united as on this occasion. Even players not affected by the contract refused to bow before the ICC.The bone of contention was a clause which prevented a player from endorsing products which are in conflict with the interest of the main sponsors of the Champions Trophy, a tournament conducted by the ICC. The crux of the matter was not money but an individual's rights. The players, understandably, were not willing to sign a contract that would have cost them a huge loss. There was also a clear sentiment running through that the interest of the players shouldn’t be compromised. The ICC wanted to assume the role of a master but the players are not going to bow. Now second point which can be mentioned here is that when ICC was negotiating with such ICON players of India and that it wanted them to let go of their brand image .Taking this into consideration it should have mentioned a clause where they could have been compensated and remunerated accordingly.
The Hen That Lays Golden Eggs .For ICC it’s clearly India as India is the biggest revenue generators in cricket. And if India was stripped of its ICON players due to the controversy which was raging then it would be like US Air force without their F-22 s .The very charm would be lost. Hence Indian players were able to negotiate because of their position and the respect they commanded in world cricket.
Now in one of the post it was mentioned that in case of Services the bargaining power of the individual increases with the increase in expertise.I belief that in Services sector specially the employees bargaining power is very limited in the fact that there are ample resources with the same level of expertise, may be even more, is available in the job market for the employers. Now the trend has become such that expertise matters but being able to project yourself as the next Bill Gates in front of your prospective employers might be able to help you to add a few zeros in your salary which sole expertise may not be able to achieve.
It is very important to remember the fact that Negotiation is not about winning –If either party feels they have capitulated, not negotiated, both parties lose. We know that power is a positive force and it should be used for positive purposes.


The solution is in fact really simple if you think you have got the spark in you to take on the system, to fight for your rights then you should go right ahead and unfortunately if you think you don’t have that in you then the only logical way is to cooperate,compromise,accept whatever comes your way.

Finally I would like to say is that

Qualifications, rankings, gradings, achievements ,the “IIT/IIM” tag do matter but the ability to put it across the table matters even more.

Power dictates the terms

Can we ever think of negotiating our employment contract? Can we ever say to the company that we won’t sign the contract unless the terms are changed? A realistic answer would be “no”. This is because, we are used to a work set up where employers possess a huge power. Employees are mere individual dispensable resources readily available in the market. So we don’t even think that we can really negotiate with the company. What if this dimension of the employee - employer relationship changes, where employees possess as good a power as the employer? In this situation employees can dictate the term of the contract. We see this situation typically in sports when the game is as much in need of the stars as the stars are in need of the game. The case of conflict of interest in sponsorship is a common phenomenon in sports. In the case under discussion, the Indian players were able to negotiate the contract with ICC because of the power they possessed. The power was the fan following of the Indian stars. Without them the game is without any spice. In the above case, ICC wanted to safeguard the interest of the event sponsors by getting a restrictive contract signed by the players. According to the contract players would not be allowed to endorse any brand which would have conflict of interest with the event sponsors for a stipulated time. But by signing the contract, the players would breach the existing contract they already have with the brands they endorse. This could cost them dearly in terms of fines and the opportunity cost of not endorsing during the peak time of the tournament. The players refused to sign the contract with the original terms and brought ICC to the negotiation table to tweak the contract for them. This was possible because of the influence they had on the game. Without the Indian stars the ICC champions trophy would have been a flop show. This would even have gone against the interest of the event sponsors for whom ICC floated the original contract; because, without the Indian stars the tournament couldn’t have pulled huge crowd and without the crowd nobody will sponsor the tournament. The Indian stars had the capability to pull huge crowd, and Indian crowd is the major follower of cricket. Hence the majority of the revenue of ICC was dependent on Indian crowd, and India being a huge market, the interest of the event sponsors lied on the size of the Indian crowd; such was the power of the Indian players. This is the reason why they could refuse to bow down to ICC or BCCI and could negotiate the terms of the contract with them.

We can argue that no one is bigger than the game; People love the game but not players etc… These are true in long term. The game has created stars. It can have replacement in absence of one. But when we are talking about stars like Sachin Tendulkar in the cricket crazy nation like India, it would take a lot of time to fill the void. But it is definitely true that the game will not wait for Sachin. The game would find another star sooner or later. But in a short term, their absence would have a huge impact on the game, which would affect the immediate tournaments.

So the lesson for us from this case is, if we really want to stand up and negotiate the contracts with the employer, we must have the power to back us. Then the question arises, do we have to have power to negotiating any contract with our employers? Can’t we negotiate on the grounds which are very much legitimate and rightful? Yes, we can. But for that the industry should have that level of maturity and professionalism, where both employee and employer respect each other’s rights and both the parties collaborate to get mutual benefits rather than focusing only on self benefits.

Latent power

As mostly discussed in this blog, most of us believe that heroes are at a better position to negotiate a deal than ordinary persons. In other words a person has to be an influential personality in his organization to have a better bargaining power. But there can be interesting cases where an employee has a huge bargaining power without he himself knowing about it. That’s what I meant by ‘latent power’ of bargaining. Here’s a small experience…
A lady complaints to the HR about one of her team mate’s continuous misbehaviour. She could also provide enough evidence to convince the HR head about what she was saying. The HR was furious and wanted to see this particular person out of the company. But the manager felt that this person is a vital resource and that he would be in trouble if this person leaves. So, the manager bargained with the HR on his behalf. Nothing happened to the employee. He never even came to know that there had been a complaint against him in the HR. On the contrary, the lady was made to change her team and was shifted to some other team. This employee was not a big hero…but of course, he had a hero who could strike the deal for him!

Want a Bargain...Be the Best

The Cricket World Cup 2002 would be remembered as much for the resurrection of the Indian fighting spirit on field as off it. The pre events of World Cup saw Indian players at loggerheads with BCCI and ICC over the advertisement rights with the players having the last laugh. When we look into the matter where the ICC wanted the players to breach the contracts with their sponsors and display the logos and ads of the World Cup sponsors on their kits, it appears as though the ICC was trying to violate the rights. The rights of the players as well as their sponsors.

The sponsors have earned the right to display their logos on the players’ kits by paying those loads of money. The ICC too may have garnered millions of dollars in sponsorship money. What the ICC could not anticipate was the strong retaliation from the players. After a month of deliberations, debates and accusations the ICC had to bow down to the players demands. The players also had to compromise a bit, but the deal was in their favour.

What is significant about the event are the parties involved. On one hand, a bunch of high profile, demi-gods of cricket and on the other their employers. (BCCI, ICC). What did the players have in them to have their employers bow down to their demands? What if the first group was a group of un-unionised employees in a firm? Would they have the same bargaining power?

The answer is No.

In my view, to have such a bargaining power one must stand out in the crowd. Unless one has some very special talent/attributes/experience/skill, he/she is replaceable. People pay lakhs of rupees to watch Sachin Tendulkar play. The ICC could not risk loosing this revenue. What does a common employee has in him to demand similar treatment as certain Sachin Tendulkar or Virender Sehwag demand?

While working in the shopfloor, I have seen some improvements suggested by the workmen become the Standard Operating Procedures for the forthcoming projects, reducing costs substantially. All that the workman got was a pat on the back and some encouraging words. Can these workmen demand the share of the profits earned due to their idea? The answer depends on the qualification/type of work done by him. For example, in my previous company there were only 2/3 people who knew how to use a certain profile measuring machine, Leica. These employees were given preferential treatment and they certainly got the better deals everywhere. The more the company specific and technology-driven work, the more is one’s bargaining power.

What we can learn from our heroes is that “Become the best in what you do and everything happens as you wish.”

What happens when a Hero falls?

In case of our discussion on ‘Open Source Development’ we argued as to what is to be done so that the company one works for does not claim as theirs, the projects that the person pursues outside regular office work. We came to the conclusion that proper paperwork would solve the problem.

But what will happen if the person gets involved in work that might indirectly have some negative impact on the company he is currently with? And he might not be doing it intentionally. The situation may be such that nobody would have thought that such an issue could rise. So no norm would also have been documented. Thus, the employee thinks he is no way going against the companies policies. But the company thinks otherwise. This is exactly what happened in ‘Can We Learn From Our Heroes?’. The ICC was not in favour of the Indian players endorsing brands of personal choice and the players agitated by this, decided that it is better that they don’t sign the agreement for the champions trophy. They were not ready to sacrifice their ‘intellectual property and personal commercial rights’.

But here the Indian players could deny signing as they believed that they were of prime importance to the ICC and so they could negotiate with it. But what will happen if one day the ICC says enough and boycotts such teams for some fixed period of time? What will then happen to the Indian Cricket and more importantly to the so-called ‘high-profile players’? Will they still have an edge when it comes to negotiating a deal?

When The Hunted stops being haunted

In sync with the previous posts general opinion that the issue here is more than that meets the eyes. As a first opinion one would believe the dispute is of money and sponsorship and ownership issues all of which can be conveniently dealt with the rules in the ambit of Sports Jurisdiction. The issue underlying here is Players personal rights being violated by the ICC.As a consequence the players are left stranded in this freewheeling melee of contracts and sponsorship clauses, many of which they need the help of an external agent to explain to them.

The owner of Fulham FC and Harrods owner Mohammad Al Fayed says why waste million dollar contracts on players who can barely read and write it raises a much more significant question- Are these sportspersons the players we covet and admire the victims or the unsuspecting benefactors of the melee that is Sponsorship rights. A case in point is the often encountered yet loosely defined Player Ownership rights. Carlos Tevez, a striker for the Argentina National Team was subject of much controversy when he was controversially transferred to West Ham Football Club in The English Premier League .This is a case of third party ownership when Kia Joorabchian, the man who owned economic rights to Tevez loaned them illegally to the club and following the good show of the player, the Club escaped relegation on the last day. As an immediate consequence the relegated club, Sheffield United filed a lawsuit and claimed damages to the tune of more than £ 20 million.

This is just a case in point. Player’s ownership rights are very much a reflection of the Open Source Development Movement where everyone knows the terms and conditions yet aware that the interests of the player, the owners, and the sponsors can all overlap. There is room for ambiguity in seemingly limited scope of sponsorship rights yet undeniably manipulations and manoeuvres can and do happen. In the case the players can be hardly blamed for the stand. They signed on the contract with their individual sponsors and are the laws and conditions in the contract are binding on them. So when the ICC asks them to sign the agreement for the Champions trophy in Sri Lanka they can either pay up to their sponsors for endorsing a rival brand or not sign the ICC agreement and back out of the tournament. More so when ICC asks the players to not endorse any other product 30 days prior and after the tournament. A player like Virender Sehwag who has signed up for Coke is being asked to endorse the rival brand, Pepsi for all promotions for the tournament. This is in direct violation to the terms of his original sponsor, Coke. Even if he agrees to endorse Pepsi for the event would the ICC be paying up for the hefty lawsuit Pepsi would file on him?

The BCCI on its part displayed amateurish behaviour in not understanding the ramifications of the contract and signing it with ICC. While ICC holds the exclusive rights to the event it doesn’t hold rights to the players’ commercial interests. The players are free to promote their brand image to and pursue advertising . This is the right that has been bestowed upon them So when South African Airlines was granted the rights for the event , the Indian team’s sponsor Sahara Airlines logo use was made forbidden. Such decisions and agreements only magnify the loopholes in the system prevalent. As for the question of can we learn from our heroes. Yes we can certainly be more careful and pragmatic in our approach while signing our contract. One may not have the standing or influence to dictate clause additions and modifications in the contract but one certainly can be firm in exercising one right over his/her intellectual capital. Just like the players we need to put our foot down and demand the wages we are paid for. As an employee we have responsibility of devoting our efforts for the Organisation yet the credit for innovation and any work pursued by the employee in furtherance to his work responsibility should be solely on the employee. The IPR is meant to protect the interests of such innovations and these shouldn’t be impinged on by the Company.

Fight for Publicity

Sports have become a very popular avenue to increase the visibility of your brand and so every brand fights to get a place in the major sporting events. While some become the official event sponsors, some indulge in ambush marketing to get the crowd’s attention.

While we consider ICC’s conditions unfair on the players, it is important to realize the pressure on ICC and BCCI by the sponsors of the event. Several times players endorse the sponsor’s competitor brands. While this can be considered legal but it certainly annoys the event organizers and sponsors.

Even though this “Ambush Marketing” is one of the most controversial forms of marketing, it is very effective indeed.

In Olympics, athletes were not allowed to bring their own food and drink, so that if they are photographed the brand don’t undermine the sponsor of the event.

The 2002, Boston Marathon was sponsored by Adidas, but Nike provided the runners with swooshes that commemorated the day of the race. Similarly, in 1998 Fifa World Cup, Nike sponsored individual teams when Adidas was the official sponsor. In 1992 Barcelona Olympics Games, Michael Jordon was sponsored by Nike, even though the team’s official sponsor was Reebok. While accepting the gold medal he covered the Reebok sign on his gear.

There have been several such cases of conflicting loyalty. In such cases, players are more inclined towards their individual sponsors rather the event sponsors who have spent heavily.

During British open, Hugo Bush parked a sailboat with a very visible logo on waters off of Scotland, where the tournament was held, thus getting all media attention and branding without paying anything. However, it is not illegal as it does not involve any counterfeiting or illegal use of trademarks, trade-names or any symbols.

In the ICC vs. Indian cricket players’ case, the players were in a leveraged position and could refuse to agree with the clause of ambush marketing imposed by ICC. But this might not be the case every time. Moreover, ICC had its own reason to impose this condition. It is very essential that we tackle this issue in a better manner as the players have already made commitment to their individual sponsors.

The board needs to discuss the matter with the players so as to avoid conflicting endorsements in future and reduce the scope of ambush marketing, rather than forcing them to sign a contract.

Acts of Heroism v/s Acts of Aversion

I agree with Santhosh, with due support from the posts of Debashish and Anuradha, after all only equals can sit together, mull things over and talk, when the distribution of power is not same then there is only a compromise between the two parties where one bows down to the other's demands. Here, what started as a negotiation ended up in a compromise, where ultimately ICC had to succumb to BCCI (courtesy Ankit Agarwal's post "Only Heroes....."), which at that time was a sort of puppet in the hands of Indian players (our demi gods) who knew their worth as brands and weight in money( Ayan's post of Tatas in Singur gives a good example of a similar tussle). More so, BCCI would have had a bigger headache to tackle if Master Blaster and other of our prized players don't come down on pitch, to see whom the entire crowd has come.

And I beg to differ with Luv as not every student with a strong resume gets into a good firm, everyone has to clear the first hurdle of cut-offs. Not everyone's worth is realised till the right person comes across, as happened in my friend's case the university topper, but almost the last to be placed. Or taking the example from the cricket world, had it not been for IPL would we have realised the talents and worth of players like Ashok Dinda, Manpreet Gony, Ravindra Jadeja, Yousuf Pathan, Pragyan Ojha etc.

Overall, I feel there was nothing heroic about this act, rather it was law which had tied their hands behind their back. Also, we cannot ignore the fact that because of this legal backing only Indian players could boycott this deal and stand against BCCI and ICC, else the richest sports body in the world is surely a tough nut to crack. As the open source development case puts across that facts, otherwise who knows next BCCI would have come up with a rule to share the revenue earned by players apart from playing cricket. Employees really need to draw the line for giving what's due to the employer and retaining what is rightfully theirs.

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As for the second question, the brands that players endorse will anyway come to them as long as they continue perform on field, else they lose out on contracts like Saurav Ganguly lost Pepsi after his performance deteriorated on field. They have come here to play cricket and that should be their priority and prime focus, it is cricket which got them recognition and brought these bramds to them and not the other way around. So of course, BCCI should be given what it rightfully deserves, but not in the manner BCCI asked for.

Had BCCI gone ahead with the contract and forced the players to sign above the dotted line, then it should have provided the players with proper compensation, same for OSD, the employee should be given a proper remuneration for his innovation or special contribution which the employer wants to market and propagate as its own with due credits, else we can have cases like "3 idiots and Chetan Bhagat fiasco". On the side of players, they also need to be logical and at least try on their part to avoid any show of competitor brands for the main sponsor of the event, as not only the brand not paying any fees, but also free riding on the advertising part.

Also there is credibility at stake for an organization like BCCI, which has to be maintained at a particular standard thanks to its size, brand and power it commands.

Looking from different sides...

Facts that give a new dimension to the issue are as follows: a) Top Indian cricketers (our heroes) earn more money from a single endorsement then they earn from match fees in a year, b) India is the single largest source of revenue for cricketing world, c) India has one of the largest fan following in the world of cricket where it is revered as a religion, d) ICC had signed a 7 year contract with its sponsors for $550 million.

Perspective of ICC: ICC in an attempt to protect its sponsors from their competitors who were endorsed by the players, made it mandatory to sign an agreement that prohibited players from appearing in any commercial that was in conflict with the interests of the official sponsors during the tournament and one month before and after the event. This stance was necessary keeping in view the famous “Nothing Official About It” campaign by Pepsi during 1996 world cup that hit very hardly to the sponsors Coca-Cola. So, from the perspective of ICC it was right in trying to safeguard the interests of its sponsors.

From the perspective of BCCI: The stakes were very high for BCCI. There were chances of heavy fine being imposed on BCCI if the players boycotted the event. Moreover it would have lost $ 9 million as its share from ICC from television and sponsorship rights. So, they tried to take the players head on and demanded them to play for the country. In its bid for honouring its agreement with ICC and financial gain, it tried to force the players.

From the perspective of the players: Though BCCI gives match fees to the players based on “grades” of the players, the major portion of the income of hugely popular cricketers in India comes from commercials. Though they are employed by BCCI, they are also free to earn from other sources. Moreover, like ICC they are also obliged to honour their contract with their respective companies. Moreover, there was fear among them that they could be charged for breach of contract if they signed because the tournament was to start in less than a month. So, the cricketers were right in negotiating for changing the clause of the agreement.

From the companies’ perspective: They have invested huge amount of money so that they could generate profits. As, Drucker says profit is the first objective of a company. So they will try to pressurize their partners’ to act according to their interests. So sponsors of ICC will put pressure on ICC and players will be pressurized by the companies they endorse.

A temporary solution could be to sign the agreement for the tournament with protective clauses so that the sponsors cannot charge the players of abuse of agreement. In the long run, what the players endorse should be moderated. If they go one endorsing everything from colas, toothpastes, health drinks, shoes etc, the conflict of interests will definitely be present.