Why is the Pakistani consumer so poor?

So a new edition of the T20 WC is coming up and it is already embroiled in some controversy. Bangladesh refused to play in India and ICC had them replaced with Scotland.

Cue the usual voices from Pakistan – “BCCICC”, “India’s money is ruining cricket” blah blah.

But it led me to ponder something – Pakistan itself has a huge population of 250 million + and it isn’t that “much” poorer than India. India’s GDP pci is $3050 while Pakistan’s is $1710 (around 1.8x) . Similarly India’s GDP is $4.51 trillion while Pak is $410.5 billion (around 11x).

So the other numbers should be in the same ratio right?

Here is where the difference comes

Revenue of cricket boards

BCCI – INR 20686 crore
PCB – INR 458 crore

That is around 45x

T20 leagues media rights

IPL – $6.2 billion for four years
PSL – $24 million for two years

That is around 130x (normalized on a per year basis)

And if you look at other stuff these huge ratios persist

Cars sold annually

India – 4.1 million
Pakistan – 200,000

Forex reserves

India – $710 billion
Pakistan – $21 billion

Stock exchange market caps

BSE – $5 trillion
PSE – $65 billion

Why do you think that is?

My theory is because the Pakistan military is stronger than the 1/10 ratio, it kind of effects everything else which leads to these lop sided ratios.

Give your thoughts in the comments below.