Taking guard
The rebel ICL gets ready to change the rules of the game.
Mumbai champs, Chandigarh Lions, Chennai Super Stars, Delhi Jets, Hyderabad Heroes and Kolkata Tigers. These are the names of the six teams that the Essel Group-promoted Indian Cricket League (ICL) has readied for a 20-20 tournament to be held at Chandigarh later this month.
This upcoming series will have more than just curious spectators in the audience. Apart from prospective players, marketers and media buying houses will be taking a close look at the format, and how well it goes down with fans.
For any cricket tournament, there are usually three revenue streams: Broadcasting, on-theground advertising and team sponsorship revenue. In a typical ODI (one-day international), the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) makes close to $8.5 million in broadcasting revenues, and another $1.7 million in sponsorship revenues per day; ticket sales can bring in as much as $3 million a day (depending on the venue).
ICL, for its part, is counting on being a lower-cost format. “ICL will be a complete value proposition for advertisers. Our rates will be definitely lower and we are also going to have customised packages for each of our partners to give them the best deal,” explains Gaurav Seth, Head, Marketing & Communication, ICL.
ICL is taking a three-phase approach to branding and marketing. In the first stage (which started on November 7), the rebel league will focus on creating awareness of the brand name (Kapil Dev, Executive Board Chairman, ICL will act as the brand ambassador). The next phase will involve a team-building campaign, which will focus on creating identities for each city team as well as non-traditional advertising; this will include team buses, parades with the city team members, and school and mall activation programmes.
The final phase will commence along with the series, and last right through its duration. Players from each city team would be made available to advertisers both at the national and at the city-level to generate viewership and interest. The league has also roped in fashion designer Manish Arora to design the team colours. The inspiration to design these uniforms has been drawn from what each city stands for and is customised to reflect each city’s ideology.
Some of the brand partners that ICL has already announced are Thomas Cook, Provogue, TCI, Sab Miller and Microsoft. While Microsoft has developed ICL’s website— indiancricketleague.in—it has also tied up with ICL for products such as Silverlight (platform to deliver rich media experience to users) and Expression (webdesigning tool). “We are working closely with ICL to enable a rich and immersive experience online, with innovative features allowing internet users to switch between multiple camera angles, broadcast feeds, overlay with statistical elements and even interact with tools that will, for example, allow users to judge and opine the fate of a player when a third umpire decision is called for. We believe ICL can use these to create strong differentiators and consumer loyalty,” says Tarun Gulati, General Manager, Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India. The Provogue association for the merchandising of ICL gear will help build brand ICL through the 126 stores across the country while beer maker SAB Miller hopes to benefit from the 20-20 cricket format and its promise of being “full of fun, adventure and high-energy.”
