These have been the main trajectories of media commentary for the past few years; the current downturn has just given them more bite. So it’s quite refreshing to see a story where a good old-fashioned media property proves it can still deliver the goods for marketers. And they don’t come much more old-fashioned than cricket.
For readers unacquainted with this most gentle of sports, it involves 22 players throwing a ball around for five days, with no actual promise of a result. In England, the country that invented the sport, every attempt to make cricket sexy over the years has failed. Attending a cricket match largely remains an opportunity to take a nap behind a newspaper rather than a chance to see an action-packed sporting event. Unsurprisingly, media rights trade for a fraction of the money thrown at football.
That, at least, was until the IPL came along. As our Live Issue on page 15 shows, this is now the hottest media property in India. Cricket has always had a huge following in the Subcontinent, but what the IPL has done is harness that into a marketing triumph. Incredibly for a sporting event, it has managed to attract huge television audiences of women. The secret is a mix of the shorter version of the game, known as Twenty20, combined with the involvement of India’s celebrity and business elite, who own the franchises and invest the money to buy players. The result was an event that managed to attract more viewers than many of the soap operas last year.
Where housewives go, marketers are usually quick to follow — despite the doom and gloom pervading the media industry, spend on the IPL is up 10 per cent year on year, with ad rates around the coverage up significantly for the second season, due to begin in April. The competition has even spawned its own media properties — there are two reality TV-style hunts for cheerleaders going on — as well as its own clothing lines.
Sony took a huge gamble last year when it signed a billion-dollar, 10-year deal for the competition’s media rights. Previously its biggest cricket investment had been just $200 million for a five-year deal with the International Cricket Council. But the deal now looks a snip. At a time when many in Asia are talking about local brands stepping onto the global stage, the IPL proves that the region is capable of building its own world-beating media properties.