Not Quite Cricket

When Kevin Alavy was working in Russia, people asked him:“How come ice hockey is not the most watched game in the world?” Alavy, who heads research at sports media consultancy, Futures Sports, uses this anecdote to explain to Indians who find it hard to believe that cricket does not figure among the most watched sports globally.

“It’s because the other fivesixth of the world is watching and playing other sports,” explains Alavy. Last year, the FIFA World Cup final was watched by an average live global audience of 329 million people; the AustraliaSri Lanka ICC World Cup 2007 final match was watched by just 11 million, according to Futures Sports research.

The two main reasons for cricket’s poor show are that the game is played and followed in fewer countries.“The other reason is that, unlike FIFA, which aims to maximise viewership by selling telecast rights to free-toair channels across the world, ICC sells its rights to pay channels. If FIFA were to do the same thing, only a 100 million average live audience would have watched the FIFA World Cup,” says Alavy.

numbered, at least in the current format. “The World Cup traditionally has been the biggest cricketing property. Till 2007, the ODI was the only format of cricket. It was only later that T20 happened. So advertisers would wait for the World Cup,” adds MSM’s Gupta. Now, with the IPL scheduled to begin six days after the World Cup ends, marketers may prefer to place their chips on the more popular 20-20 format. Even the ICC is taking a wait-and-watch stand on the future of the ODI format. “We will let market forces determine the course of the ODI format,” an ICC official told BT.

“TheIPL is a more proven format and the advertisers are willing to bet huge monies on it. There is better visibility for the brand as it reaches more people and the reach is consistent match after match,” says Mahesh Ranka, General Manager, Relay Worldwide, which provides sponsorship consulting and is a part of Starcom MediaVest. Ranka points out that brands like Havells virtually built their visibility on the IPL. “IPL is a big platform, World Cup or no World Cup,” says former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu. “It is a $4.1-billion brand; it is an industry here to stay,” he adds. Ranka also believes that a tournament like the World Cup is too dependent on the Indian team’s performance and that advertisers would prefer a safer bet such as the IPL, where interest is broad-based.

It’s a point of view most media planners subscribe to. “According to our estimates, the World Cup could attract`600 crore to `650 crore in advertising(spend),” says GroupM’s Kumar. He believes that the figure will be higher for the IPL. Media planners reckon that IPL advertising could touch `900 crore— in IPL-3, advertising spend stood at `750 crore.

The World Cup is hamstrung by the fact that in the first month of the tournament India plays just six matches. Even if India makes it to the finals, the Indian team would play just nine matches in a 45-day long tournament. The IPL has a total of 74 matches played over 51 days.

MSM’s Gupta also says that IPL’s improving reach — 143 million in 2010 from 102 million in 2008 —has helped it tap sponsors and advertisers even six months before the tournament. It even sold spots for the live auction of players at`50,000 per 10 seconds. Videocon and Vodafone have coughed up an estimated `50 crore each as presenting sponsors for IPL-4 while the likes of Samsung Mobile, LG, Hyundai Motors, PepsiCo, Tata Photon, Havells, Cadbury and Godrej have paid roughly `36 crore each to pick up sponsorships.

ESPN, though, believes that the World Cup continues to be a good property for advertisers. “I think people make a mistake when they say that ‘only’ 10 countries follow cricket. People are interested in group matches because they want to see who wins what and the permutations and combinations of contests,” says ESPN’s Sawhney. Others such as Castrol believe that the international following of the World Cup makes it a better proposition than the IPL, which largely has an Indian following. “South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the UK are all key markets for Castrol worldwide. The fact that the World Cup is followed in these countries also makes it a good sporting event to be associated with,” explains Castrol’s Kirpalani. Either way, the debate about the future of the ODI format and the World Cup will be determined in fewer than three months. Another early ouster for the men in blue will mean curtains for this tournament, which derives 75-80 per cent of its revenues from the Indian subcontinent. However, if Dhoni’s team makes it to the finals, Indian cricket’s poster boys won’t be the only ones smiling.