Written by Nishant Sravanan, Member of SIGMA — The Business Club, NIT Trichy
Cricket has been one of the most popular sports globally and the most popular sport in India; it counts for almost 90% of the cricket fans in the world, according to ICC (International Cricket Council). The cricket business has made significant advances over the past decade, especially after the emergence of the Indian Premier League, the Indian T20 league. The marketing in IPL is fascinating and very insightful for any budding digital marketer out there. Right from the matches’ timing to the brand endorsements, the IPL is a money minting machine.
History of Cricket:
Cricket is an ancient sport that was spread around the world by the British Empire. Around the 2000s, England’s domestic cricket was losing fans. To not let the game die, a British TV network had hired Mr. Stuart Robertson (Marketing Manager of England & Wales Cricket Board) to come up with a strategy to solve the problem. After much research, they had come up with a plan that revolutionised the world of cricket. They came up with a format called, t-20 which was played for 20 overs by each team. The most significant selling point of this format was that it was played only for 3 hours.
Revolution in the Cricket Industry:
In 2007, the first-ever T-20 world cup was played in South Africa, which India won. The Indians were not interested in this format initially and had sent a team of youngsters, which turned out to be the best move as they ended up winning the trophy. A year later, Mr. Lalit Modi (ex-vice president of BCCI) had a genius idea to bring in a T-20 tournament in India called the ‘Indian Premier League’ (IPL). They developed a model like the NFL but with elements of T-20 cricket.
The IPL is one of the most successful run T-20 tournaments worldwide, hitting a viewership of around 200 million on the opening match of IPL 2020. The TV rights have been given to Star India for nearly 16000 Crores INR until 2022. This year has been one of the most viewed seasons owing to the pandemic, as all games were played behind closed doors.
The IPL has had an insane growth in revenue from its beginning to date. It started with a 500 million INR (DLF) title sponsorship fee to 4,480 Million INR(Vivo) in 2020.
Vivo, the Chinese mobile manufacturer, had struck a 4,480 Crore 5-year deal (2017–2022), but they got suspended in the IPL 2020 season due to the tension between India and China. For the IPL 2020 season, Dream 11 had been the title sponsor for just Rs. 2.28 Billion, which is almost half of what Vivo paid for the previous season.
Looking at the success of IPL, many countries had started their own league, but the numbers can never come close to the IPL. This is mainly due to India’s population and the love Indians have towards the sport, which is why the value of IPL keeps increasing every year.
Comparing IPL with the other major leagues in the world:
The IPL had only started in 2007 and has fast grown to be one of the world’s wealthiest leagues. It is the only cricket league to join the top 20 most valuable media rights deal in professional sports globally, joining the ranks of NFL, NBA, and EPL. In 2019, IPL was valued at a net worth of 6.8 Billion USD. When the global broadcasting rights deal for the league changed companies from Sony to Star TV for a deal of 2.55 Billion USD, the price for a single match increased from 1 million USD in 2008 to nearly 8.5 Million USD in 2018. For comparing this with the other major leagues in the world, the NFL costs 22.5 Million USD, EPL is around 13 Million USD, and the MLB is only 630 Thousand USD.
Marketing in Cricket:
Over the years, marketing in cricket has been more innovative and has way more significant effects. Most companies set aside a large amount for marketing their product in sports competitions. Nowadays, you can see sponsors almost everywhere in a stadium, in the stumps, bats, jerseys, post-match conferences, etc. Many brands sponsor the players so that their name gets out there to everyone.
Due to the pandemic, all the games had to be played behind closed doors. As there was no crowd to watch the match, the electronic boards on the grounds were elevated, and the seats were covered with banners that showed the sponsors.
Despite the pandemic challenges, the IPL managed to pull off the tournament using bio-bubble and increased the tally of advertisers and brands by 7% and 3% respectively with respect to its previous edition.
Brand value of the teams:
Even though the 13th Edition of IPL had broken viewership and advertisement revenue records, the business value of IPL dropped by 22% due to the covid pandemic. However, this did not stop the Mumbai Indians from growing in brand value. The Ambani-owned franchise grew by 8% this year, whereas all the other teams had declined in brand value.
The IPL has paved a pathway for franchisees to increase their brand value by conducting sponsorship events, fan engagement, media sponsors, social media promotion, etc. The Chennai Super Kings has one of the biggest fan bases in the IPL, primarily because of the former Indian Captain. It would be interesting to see how the fan engagement would change once he leaves the franchise.
The Future of IPL:
According to Hotstar’s official report of 2018, on average, only 52% of the people who saw an advertisement on YouTube recalled the brand correctly compared to 76% of those on Hotstar. It had also mentioned that Vivo IPL viewers on Hotstar are 1.2 times more likely to purchase key product categories compared to the average internet user.
The IPL has not only been an enormous money minting machine but also plays a big role in bringing up the nation’s hidden talents every year. Last year Thangarasu Natarajan, a left-arm fast bowler, had become a sensation with his performance in the IPL. He became the first Indian to make an international debut across all three game formats on the same tour.
The IPL is a fast-growing league that keeps getting bigger each year. At this rate, we could hopefully see the IPL final becoming an unofficial holiday like the Super Bowl in America; a dream for most fans now could most likely be the reality one day.
