The debate has been going on for the last few days. TV channels are talking about the gross injustice to other sportsmen while cricketers hog the limelight.

Seriously, we suddenly seem to have woken up to the fact how other sports have been so grossly ignored all along and how cricket players garner all the moolah! The nation’s favourite passion (or religion as some would say) has also become the favourite whipping boy!

So who is to blame? Is it the government which some from the electronic media have been happily lambasting during the last few days? Almost every channel is busy covering the government’s or the regulatory bodies apathy towards other sports and raising questions. We are busy speculating or capitalising on Vishwanathan Anand’s return and how he’ll be treated or covering Pankaj Advani’s refusal of the Eklavya award or how the other sports people are now getting organised to make their voice heard.

Or is there a larger issue at stake? Even now we are not addressing the issue from the right perspective or a long-term solution. The fact is that cricket is a sport which gets the largest viewership. Channels vie with each other to get telecast rights paying hundreds of crores, which they know will get them double that in return. It becomes almost a ‘do or die’ situation for them as it determines the advertisement revenues they will get.

The stakes in cricket have always been bigger. And the media does no less in hyping it further and capitalising on the cricket fever. On top of it, you often hear about the betting that goes on in cricket. When was the last time you heard of such betting on any other sport? When was the last time you heard of TV channels vying with each other to cover these games and willing to pay a few hundred crores for telecast rights? How many channels properly covered our winning the Asia Cup for hockey? When was the last time we all sat down to watch at full-length, Vishwanathan Anand’s duel with his opponent?

Through the media we know what Sehwag eats for lunch, how Dhoni was given a parking ticket in Ranchi or when Sachin went to a temple! But do we have any such information about Nisha Millet, Pankaj Advani, yesteryear's’ star P T Usha or Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who got us the Olympics Silver Medal just recently? They are forgotten before we could even blink!

Every country has a favourite sport which gets watched by the majority. Be it soccer for Germany; baseball,  rugby for the US; or cricket for India. This then gets into a self-generative mode as the game then attracts big money through sponsorships and adverts and so gains bigger visibility. Therefore there is bigger attraction for it. Media does no less in hyping it further. It serves everyone’s purpose in the media business.

Spurred by Chak De (a truly inspiring movie) we all seem to now realise other games have life too! We’ll keep debating  this till the cows come home but happily forget to take any lasting action. Media too would have found a new muse by then.

So what has changed? Nothing. Let us all, including the electronic media which has such enormous influencing power and potential, play a responsible role in creating and nurturing other sports too. Pointing fingers would get us nowhere.