Cricket has long been considered a sport for men but that is set to change with the inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL). The mega event, created on the lines of the men’s Indian Premier League (IPL), will be held between March 4 and 26. The BCCI expects the WPL to bring in a seismic change in women’s cricket and turn it into a money-spinner. BCCI has already raked in Rs 4,670 crore from the auction of five WPL teams—Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Lucknow. On average, each team was sold for `930 crore, compared to the average `500 crore fetched by the eight IPL teams in 2008. Men’s cricket, however, has traditionally attracted a large audience base. As per financial services firm Elara Capital, the average reach of women’s cricket in India is 20 million, and the number for IPL goes up to around 500 million.
But broadcasters and advertisers are hopeful, says Anil Jayaraj, CEO (Sports) at Viacom18 Media. The company has paid `951 crore for the media rights of WPL for five years and Jayaraj is confident that this will prove to be an invaluable asset. “My philosophy is that your business objectives must be achieved. Our first objective is financial and the second is enhancing the brand’s reputation,” he says, adding that every event needs to stand on its own. Plus, there’s the larger goal of aggregating audiences for the app (Jio Cinema) that WPL is expected to do, and the interest from advertisers has also been immense, he adds. This investment, says Karan Taurani, senior VP at Elara Capital, can pay rich dividends only in the long term, provided women’s cricket attracts a mass following. “WPL will bring in a wider target audience to market its brands to women. Return on capital employed would improve in the medium to long term only if it is accepted in a big way and if media rights revenue has a multiplier impact at the next round of auctions in CY28.”
For WPL to garner a scalable viewership is certainly an uphill task. But stakeholders are in it for the long haul and are willing to put in the work required to ensure WPL’s victory on the pitch.
@PLidhoo
