Sporting chance
ESPN is convinced there’s life beyond cricket.
Russell E. Wolff, Executive Vice President & Managing Director, ESPN International, chose an interesting venue to talk up the network’s plans for life beyond cricket.
Seated in the bare conference room of cricinfo.com, which ESPN acquired back in June this year, one of the most trusted sites about cricket, Wolff insists the network is determined to look beyond cricket, and is focussing on hockey, football and motor sports, especially F1, to drive its appeal in India.
Premier Hockey League, for example, saw viewership for season three reach 9.2 million viewers, which is double last year’s. Barclays Premier League, meanwhile, had already been sampled by every second cable and satellite viewer. “T20 was good, a great invention for the sport, but these sports (hockey and football) prove that the Indian market is not just cricket-crazy,” says Wolff. ESPN International, the network’s operation outside its North American markets, has devised 14 different versions of Sportscenter, its flagship show, including one in India.
His plan, however, is not just restricted to just the idiot box; in fact, ESPN now wants to dominate sports broadcasting across all media —publishing, TV, internet and even radio—and plans to use its Cricinfo acquisition to expand its online presence. “They (Cricinfo) have done a great job by building a cult cricket brand and we believe that we can use many of their features on our online offerings,” says Wolff, pointing to initiatives such as its live game coverage and access to the Wisden Cricket Almanac as key attractions.
“We believe that our Bangalore team can now duplicate these technology innovations for not just ESPN.com, but several other popular sports portals too,” he contends. The Cricinfo presence also allowed ESPN to get a toehold into emerging markets such as the US and the UK (with its growing expat Indian population) and smaller markets such as Australia, New Zealand and England. “No one likes a game for over 2-3 hours in the US and T20 fits the bill for this market,” says Wolff, who adds that Cricinfo helped introduce an all new audience to the game. “We want to have (the equivalent of) Cricnfo for every game,” he adds.
ESPN.com already attracts over 24 million visitors and Wolff believes that this number can be exponentially increased with acquisitions in not just cricket, but others such as scrum.com for rugby too. In the US, ESPN has begun to sell package deals (across multiple media channels) to its advertisers for the NFL (National Football League) and believes a similar model can be adopted for other sports. “Sports fans like to be engaged when a sport is being broadcast live, both on their TV sets and online,” he says.
