“Manoranjan Ka Baap” is back in town! The carnival of cricket begins today. So get ready to drench in streams of fours and sixes for next 44 days. Such grand openings are generally observed for World Cup’s (any sport) but not on annual events. Akon, UB 40, Lionel Richie, Deepika Padukone will be performing for the event. No event ever (be it any other sport, politics, green earth, rape, murder, Bollywood, even other forms of cricket – ODI, Test Cricket) in India has been showered with such publicity or broadcasted across such wide range of medium.
Everybody knows that cricket’s most popular event is as much about entertainment and marketing as the sport itself, if not more. The eight IPL team captains will take an oath to respect their opponents, their teams and their umpires and sign a globe made of recyclable material to demonstrate their commitment to reduce the tournament's carbon footprint as a part of IPL’s association with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). UN will also cover IPL. And there will be brands, more than a hundred, fighting for consumer’s attention through different media, from television to the Internet to even live streaming in multiplexes.
Official IPL broadcaster SET Max is expected to take away more than 30% of the total TV ad spends in March and April when advertisers are estimated to spend around Rs 1,600 crore. SET Max will be laughing its way to the bank with all their costs and expenditure for the entire year will be recovered in 44 days, beginning March 12th till April 25th 2010.
“The kind of innovation in branding and sponsorship deals that have taken place this season has almost doubled the brand equity of IPL,” says Indranil Das Blah, former vice-president, Globosport
In addition all the franchises are jumping in with their merchandise, t-shirts, caps, bandanas, head bands, bracelets, cricket merchandise, logos, broaches, chains, lockets and what not. The clubs are being built and soon there will be restaurant’s and pubs from franchise owners. In
Yes, it’s a bonanza for cricket lovers. Vijay Mallya is the happiest, the consumption of beer shoots during the IPL season. All said and done, I’d say skip the IPL match on Sunday and do watch the Bahrain GP, one of the challenging races in F1 circuit since past 15 years. Perhaps till next year or may be a year after that, F1 remains one of the costliest sports on this planet.
There have been rare or none occasions in the past when there were four teams neck to neck fighting for the title. With each posing the equal risk to the other. Closing 90’s and opening 2000’s, all the walls were painted with red colour by one name, “Michael Schumacher”. Even if somebody did succeed in posing some challenge to Schumi (as Michael is dotingly referred to), there would be a race between two.
Now after renouncing his world, Michael Schumacher is back after three year long hiatus on racing circuit under Mercedes with silver dress shedding his trademark red colour of Ferrari. Ferrari is pitching
To add to the excitement, the change in rules forbid the fuel refilling for pole position holders. To add to the persistence, patience, technique, knowledge, understanding, cool head, the restraint of resources has been brought in this race. The diversity of their experience, of their age groups adds to the adrenaline rush. Alonso and Hamilton have worked as teamed together in their earlier races. But now the roles, the sides, the conditions have changed. Lets see who holds the forte on 14th of March 2010. Do hold your seatbelts and drop your bats?
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