Category: Sports

MUMBAI: T-10 Gully Cricket Season 2, Ab Har Koi Khelega‘ that kick-started its second season has signed actor Rajpal Yadav as a team owner of Kanpur Gullies. Yadav has paid Rs 4 million to take control of the team.

Yadav will own this team and will be responsible for marketing and promoting it. He will be involved from the grass-root level in all the aspects of the team from selection, grooming of the players to cheering them in the stadium etc.

He will also be instrumental in promoting this social cause and garnering various corporate sponsorships for his team in this season.

Said Yadav, “Genuinely delighted to be an owner of this wonderful team, it gives me an opportunity to connect with my roots, as I am primarily from Kanpur. For decades this city and this state has always displayed extraordinary sporting skills in all disciplines, but many of these talents never got their due credit, Kanpur Gullies being the semi finalists in the first season only consolidates their cricketing prowess.

“T-10 Gully Cricket format comes across at an apt stage for the youngsters to showcase their talent. There are some extremely brilliant players who play in the gullies of our country, and in the process have sharpened their skills continuously bettering their performances. It‘s time that their skills are projected in front of the country and they get their deserved due.”

Incidentally, Kanpur Gullies had been a promising semi finalist in the T-10 Gully Cricket Season 1 and had powerhouse performances delivered by all its players.

Organisers, Reasonable Communications is aiming to disburse individual ownership for each team for all the 16 teams in Season 2. It will follow the city franchisee model for which discussions are on at various levels with local celebrities and corporates who have national appeal.

This season 2 that commenced from 26 September will be played amongst 896 players from 64 teams in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Panchkula, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Balia, Patna, Gwalior, Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Surat, Nashik, Latur & Daman and will be telecast live on DD Sports while its highlights will be shown on DD 1.

MUMBAI: Percept has launched ‘Goa Super Sixes’.

The first edition of the annual corporate cricket tournament will take place from 9– 12 October 2009 at the Taj Exotica in Goa. The tournament will look to offer a fun-filled version of the game of cricket that aims to combine the passion for the sport with the serene yet festive ambience of Goa.

Though the concept of ‘Super Sixes’ is quite popular internationally, the uniqueness of ‘Goa Super Sixes’ is that it involves big names from the corporate world. Seven corporate teams will fight it out for the title of Goa Super Sixes’ 09.

Participating teams are Future Group, Bharti Teleservices, Godhawat Group, Indian Television Academy, Maru Group, Pinc Group and Percept . Each team will be led by their respective leaders viz. Kishore Biyani, Rajan Mittal, Sanjay Ghodawat, Shashi Ranjan, Gaurang Gandhi, Vasant Maru and Harindra Singh.

The teams will also have personalities from cricket, Bollywood, music and fashion. Cricket icons such as Kapil Dev, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ajay Jadeja as well as celebrities like Sunil Shetty, Cyrus Broacha, Manav Gohil, Shaan and Atul Wasan will participate as team members in the teams.

Bharti Enterprise vice chairman MD Rajan Mittal says, “Cricket has always been a passion for Indians and it’s a great initiative by Percept to have a cricket tournament for the corporate world. It will be a good platform for our team to network with participants from other companies.”

Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani says, “It’s a very interesting concept as all the corporates will get an opportunity to come together and battle it out on the ground for a change. Our team will also get a once in a lifetime opportunity to play with Dilip Vengsarkar, as he will be a part of our team”.

Percept vice-chairman, MD Harindra Singh said, “The concept of the Super Sixes is quite popular globally, and we wanted to introduce this concept into Corporate India. We wanted to involve all the top Honchos from the corporate world and create an exciting property for them as there weren’t any sports related activity where the top leaders of leading organisations could participate. As cricket is immensely popular with people of all ages we decided to create a cricket tournament specially designed for the corporate world.”

Kingfisher Airlines is the official Airline Partner, Taj Exotica the Hospitality Partner and Chivas is the spirits partner for the Goa Super Sixes Tournament.

To make the tournament more exciting, some unusual and entertaining rules have been incorporated. Each game will be played between two teams of six players each and each team will get to play three matches and earn two points on each win. The action packed game will comprise five overs per innings.

To give each player an opportunity to bat, the batsman must retire ‘not out‘ on reaching a personal score of 31 runs, but may not retire before reaching 31 runs. If five wickets fall before 5 overs are completed, the last remaining batsman will bat on with the 5th out batsman acting as a runner. Underarm bowling is completely prohibited.

MUMBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) board will gather in Johannesburg on 6 and 7 October for one of the four scheduled meetings it holds in a year.

Among the main items on the agenda are the following:

Future Tours Programme post-2012 : The ICC board will continue its work in formulating a Future Tours Programme (FTP) for Full Member international cricket after 2012. As part of that process, it will consider a draft FTP presented by the ICC Chief Executives’ Committee and look at ways in which greater context can be given to Test, ODI and T20I cricket.

Development : The board will receive an update on the Pepsi ICC Development Programme and will specifically hear from ICC Principal Advisor IS Bindra on the latest on the work currently underway to promote cricket in the United States and China.

Promotion of Test cricket : The board will consider ways and means to further promote Test cricket, the pinnacle of the game.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 : The board will consider the seedings and groupings for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, which will take place in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Task team updates : The board will hear updates from a number of task teams, including those charged with looking into the areas of Zimbabwe, Pakistan and general security around international cricket.

MUMBAI: MUMBAI:Ahead of the Airtel Champions League Twenty20, ESPN Star Sports (ESS) has announced more on-ground sponsors. Samsung and Hero Honda have come in as associate sponsors while USL is the hospitality partner.

As had been reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, the beverage partner is Coca Cola while Onida is the Umpire Partner. As far as on-air sponsorship deals are concerned the co-presenting sponsors are Bharti Airtel, Hero Honda and Onida. There are six associate sponsors – Samsung, Yahoo, Maruti Suzuki, Pepsi, Sony and Havells.

ESS has so far sold 95 per cent of its inventory. Says ESPN Software India MD RC Venkateish, “ We are well on the way in realizing our commercial objectives.”

ESPN Star Sports has become the largest investor in the game of cricket with leading boards including England, Australia, ICC and Champions League Twenty20 in its fold.

MUMBAI: Neo Cricket which is looking for six to eight season partners has managed to rope in Tata DoCoMo.

A media buyer, while declining to comment on the size of the investment, notes that the commitment starts with the seven match ODI series between India and Australia. It continues till the South Africa series next year.

The buyer further notes that with this sustained visibility, the company will be able to plan its marketing activities better. Neo Cricket is looking to charge rates similar to what Sony had got for the IPL. When contacted Neo Sports Broadcast COO Prasana Krishnan declined to comment.

It is expected that the Australia series will do better than the Champions Trophy. Though, if there is a drop compared with previous bilateral ODI India series then serious questions may be raised by advertisers about the viability of the ODI format.

MUMBAI: Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has announced that it has won the bid for the rights to the Barclays Premier League matches for three years commencing August 2010.

These include rights for mio TV, as well as the Internet and mobile.

SingTel CEO Allen Lew says, “We are delighted that SingTel will be bringing Barclays Premier League matches to Singapore. Football fans can look forward to a revolutionary way of viewing ‘live’ soccer matches on TV, the Internet and their mobile phones.

“Best of all, they will not be charged more than what they are currently paying to their cable TV operator, while at the same time enjoying superior experience and convenience from our integrated platform offering,” Lew adds.

Meanwhile, SingTel has also secured the broadcast rights to a suite of sports networks and services from ESPN Star Sports (ESS) for its mio TV customers, starting mid-2010.

Three of the channels are ESPN, Star Sports and Star Cricket that are currently available on a cable TV platform. These are ESS’ current flagship channel offerings, featuring sporting events including The FA Cup, AFC, Formula One, the Australian Open, Wimbledon, The Open Championship (golf) and the US Open Golf Championship.

ESPNEWS, a new 24-hours sports news channel, is planning to go ‘live’ on SingTel’s mio TV in November.

MUMBAI: With the Airtel Champions League Twenty20 kicking off next week, the GMR-owned IPL franchisee Delhi Daredevils has roped in Idea as yet another sponsor.

Information available with Indiantelevision.com indicates that the deal is not just for Champions League, but also for the the third season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). It is pertinent to note here that Idea is also a team sponsor of the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise.

Meanwhile, Coca Cola that was with Delhi Daredevils in the second season of the IPL tourney, has extended its partnership with the franchisee for three more years.

As part of its partnership with the Daredevils, Idea will exhibit its logo on the back of the team shirt. It is estimated that the telecom company will spend a little more than Rs 80 million on the deal.

Coca Cola‘s logo, meanwhile, will be seen on the team‘s headgear.

A GMR official says that all sponsorship deals barring Coca Cola‘s will come up for renewal next year after the third season of the IPL gets over. “Coca Cola, though, did not want to wait and was keen to re-sign as we have delivered good value. The other sponsors including Hero Honda, Adidas, Wrigleys, Religare are very much with us and are also keen to re-sign. However, we want to wait for the third season to get over before doing any more deals,” he adds.

Of course, since the IPL is coming back to India next year, sponsors will get more bang for their buck. The money spent depends on the position of the brand on a player‘s attire among other things.

Says an industry expert, “Wrigleys will spend around Rs 4 million while Hero Honda as the team sponsor will spend Rs 150 million a year.”

MUMBAI

: The FIVB has announced that its inaugural year in partnership with sports, entertainment and media company IMG has returned strong television numbers for the 2009 Swatch FIVB World Tour

and the 2009 Swatch FIVB World Championships in Stavanger, Norway.

With two Swatch FIVB World Tour events still to be held, Beach Volleyball worldwide total revenues in 2009 are already 180 per cent higher than in 2007 – the last year in which the Beach Volleyball World Championships and World Tour were played together, and 130 per cent higher than in 2008 when just the World Tour was played.

FIVB president Jizhong Wei said “The appeal of Beach Volleyball for television has been strong for a number of years however these outstanding figures represent a new era for the sport in terms of exposure and accessibility for Beach Volleyball fans worldwide”.

“These achievements are particularly relevant in the context of the current economic downturn which has seen the collapse and default of many broadcasters worldwide. Such achievements in the development of Beach Volleyball are the result of the FIVB’s new global approach including a new television strategy which has revolutionized the way Beach Volleyball is presented on television.

“In addition, all FIVB Beach Volleyball organizers have contributed a lot towards the growth of the overall system and this was especially evident with the 2009 Swatch FIVB World Championships recently held in Stavanger, which was the most successful Beach Volleyball World Championships in FIVB history.”

Other key 2009 Beach Volleyball Television Facts:

2009 Swatch FIVB World Championships

• 25 international broadcasters took the finals live – an increase of 525 per cent from the 2007 edition held in Gstaad, Switzerland where there were four.
• 40 international broadcasters showed action, marking an increase of 185 per cent on 2007 (14), including key broadcasters such as Universal/NBC (USA), DSF (Germany),
Television Espanola (Spain), Supersport (SouthAfrica), NOS (Netherlands), Globo (Brazil), Polsat (Poland) and ASBU (Middle East).
• Combined live, highlights and news audience was 1.65 billion across 120 territories in 2009 while in 2007 the total audience was 435m. An increase of 279.31% with Germany, a key Beach Volleyball territory, as a prime example where according to IFM interim data the TV Coverage Comparison between 2007 and 2009 has seen an increase of cumulated broadcasting time of 279% and an increase of cumulated audience of 143%.
• 426 hours of broadcast matches in 2009, compared with only 147 in 2007. (An increase of 189%)

2009 SWATCH FIVB World Tour (two more tournaments still remaining in the season)

• As part of the record-breaking year, the FIVB secured multiyear deals in strategic countries and regions around the world such as Middle East, China, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, the US and Latin America guaranteeing long term television exposure.
• The number of international broadcasters increased from 24 in 2008 to 39 in 2009 with an average of 16 (up from 2 in 2008) broadcasting semifinals and finals live or near live.
• Live footage has been distributed in 2009 to 130 territories with highlights reaching 200 territories (In 2007 a combined total of 120 territories worldwide was reported).

MUMBAI: Spanish soccer club Real Madrid have extended their shirt sponsorship deal with Austrian online betting group Bwin by three years until 2013.

The nine-times European champions will earn $29.1 million a year from the improved agreement.

Bwin replaced BenQ mobile as Real‘s principal sponsor in 2007, signing a three-year deal that was reported at the time to be worth between 15 and 20 million euros a year.

Real Madrid persident Florentino Pérez says, “International football needs partners like bwin, globally renowned for its experience and its involvement in sports sponsorship. We are very pleased with this collaboration; with this alliance we can strengthen our links with leading international companies.”

In this way, Bwin is underlining its support for top-level football and it is taking this opportunity to launch a very special bet. In creating this unique bet, bwin is banking on Real Madrid winning the Champions League title for the 10th time by 2013. The bet will be open to all bwin users for a period of 48 hours, starting today 28th of September 2009, at 8.00 p.m. In order to participate in the unique bet, users have to back Real Madrid to win the Champions League title again by 2013. 100 of all bwin users who place the bet will then be drawn by lot. The lucky winners will receive odds of 100:1 for a maximum stake of EUR 10.

Football, as the number 1 sport in the world and as a cornerstone of sports bets is the most important of the three areas that make up bwin‘s betting strategy. The second key area is its commitment to the MotoGP championship. Basketball is another of the sports that has bwin‘s support, in the context of its collaboration with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), as bwin has sponsored all European and World championships since 2006.

MUMBAI: The air seems to have gone out of the 50-over one-day cricket

format, barring the India-Pakistan skirmish. As per Tam data, the first week viewership of the ongoing Champions Trophy has remained abysmal with the average rating for the first six matches standing at a 1.6 TVR.

This is because the West Indies versus Australia match garnered a mere 0.26 TVR while three matches of the first six failed to reach even a TVR of 1.

The only relief was the India-Pakistan match on 26 September that kept fans remain glued to their television sets to help fetch a 6.2 TVR.

Comparing the Champions Trophy ratings with the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the 20-20 over format had performed much better, giving an average rating of 4.2 TVR across 59 matches.

Even the T20 World Cup had fared better than the Champions Trophy though India got knocked out early there too. The event had pocketed an average TVR of 2.89.

Meanwhile, talking about the media-metrix of the T-20 format, media buyers believe that while the T-20 format is more popular, it is also more expensive. The format also has the disadvantage of fewer inventories and therefore, not many advertisers join board.

However, some media buyers believe that though the Twenty20 format is getting more popular there is value in the ODI format as well.