That seems to be the long term case for Cricket and IPL franchises here. In the near future Cricket schedule may look more like Football's year long. But there really isn't a home base for these franchises other than their home in India. I just don't see a single league happening for more than 3-4 months other than IPL.
If IPL ends up running for most of the year duration then where will other leagues go? How will they compete with IPL? Where will the franchises loyalty would then be? With Chennai Super Kings or Durban Super Kings?
None of these leagues are meant to be competitors to the IPL, and none of them will run for 3-4 months like the IPL. They are supposed to be feeder leagues (in a sense) for the IPL while being their own thing in their respective countries. IPL can't run for the whole year. The remaining months in the calendar will likely be made up of these leagues.
How would Champions League work? Will they abandon the city names from their brand and would just compete as Super Kings and MI in the league?
They will keep the brand moniker and the city name obviously. How else will you differentiate between the two? CSK will be made up largely of Indian players whereas Johannesburg Super Kings will be made up of largely South African players.
I don't know if the leagues can even be merged together. Why would most country boards allow foreign owned teams to run a big year long league?
Not sure if I understand your point of merging leagues together. I never said that. Owners are separate entities buying up teams in different leagues. They are all different people but more or less have the same goal. The other leagues won't run all year long.
And as far as your question of why boards would allow foreign-owned teams to build this kind of influence in their cricket eco-system is concerned, well, it has already started happening. And the reason is simple: money. South Africa were struggling big-time financially before the SA20 took off. New Zealand cricket is struggling to a great extent too. Other boards like ECB and CA have different issues where they have the cricket board or state associations owning the franchise teams, who obviously can't pay the players the same kind of money as these cash-rich IPL owners. Boards are being put in positions where they have no choice but to take the money because not doing so would be depriving their players of financial benefit. But long term, it will have a significant impact on their influence and power within their own system.
I also think one more card that BCCI has right now is allowing Indian players to participate in other leagues. That will extend the life and comfort period for these global franchises but I just don't see a year long working model with only Indian owned teams on the stage.
Who's to say that they won't allow Indian players to take part in these leagues in the future? Cricket is going to a place where it seems like everything will be connected to money. They can pay BCCI extra to allow certain big-name Indian players to take part in other leagues, which will boost viewership for these leagues in India too. From what I understand, BCCI not allowing their players to take part in foreign leagues is down to two reasons: 1) workload and 2) they don't want their local/homegrown players to get too caught up in franchise league cricket. Those are not really major dealbreakers that can't be worked around for the right price. Especially if the franchises are Indian-owned.
Lastly. I follow Cricket and Pakistan Cricket because it is a passion. Even if Cricket in Pakistan was restricted to a National T20 only. I will still follow it.
Being a Pakistani Cricket fan is actually a hard thing.
Ask 23 year old Bashir. If glory and brand consciousness was my goal then I would simply just follow Real Madrid all year long. See them win matches every week and Champions League every other year. Easy sports-fan life.
That's your perspective, I'm talking about the larger picture. Firstly, most people in Pakistan are not hardcore cricket fans, and the economy has not come to the point yet where alot of the growth of the sport starts happening organically, like it did in India years ago. None of this means that Pakistan cricket will die, but being locked out of such a hypothetical ecosystem will have far-ranging impacts on the profitability of cricket as a sport in Pakistan. If cricket as a sport is not profitable enough..(hypothetically speaking) where you, as a player barely play any international cricket and can't get a contract in any franchise league in the world, then what's the point of spending your whole life trying to perfect your craft? It would naturally lead to less people wanting to take up the sport of cricket.
