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Tag: BCCI

  • Doordarshan in talks with US co as it plans varsity leagues via PPP

    MUMBAI: Doordarshan, inspired by the spectacular success of private broadcasters, is preparing to enter into the sports business with three different sports leagues in basketball, kabaddi and football. 

    Sports sponsorship in India grew 19.33 per cent in 2016 to touch Rs 6,400 crore, according to a report titled Sporting Nation in the Making IV, jointly published by GroupM ESP, and SportzPower, a sports business news company.

    The pubcaster is already in parleys with a US-based company, Doordarshan D-G Supriya Sahu said. The league, to be unveiled in couple of months, will be played amongst students from the university/college levels across the nation. Non-cricket leagues saw franchise revenue growing 4.97 per cent from Rs 201.2 crore in 2015 to Rs 211.2 crore in 2016.

    The main idea is to bolster a public-private partnership (PPP) to lay a platform for the multi-billion dollar university level sports – beginning with the three sports and later expanded to other sports. The matches will be aired on all Doordarshan channels including DD Sports and will be promoted across the mediums such as radio and outdoor publicity. 

    DD Sports, she said, was in the process of reforming the content, and rebranding it to make it relevant for its target audience. Sports leagues are major content differentiators in the genre. 

    In 2012, NDTV had ideated similar sports league with a university-level cricket league in partnership with Association of Indian Universities and the ministry of human resource development and BCCI (Board of Cricket Control in India). The league was aimed at encouraging cricket at the university level but didn’t last beyond the first season.

    Apart from Indian Premier League, there are at present five major sports leagues played across India — Indian Super League, Hockey India League, Pro Kabaddi League, Premier Badminton League and International Premier Tennis League. 

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  • IPL ’18 media rights decision likely in July, player recruitment norms to be tweaked

    NEW DELHI: Even as the Indian cricket board BCCI explores tweaks in new player recruitment norms by franchisees for the next edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2018, decisions on media rights is likely to be taken by next month and the title sponsorship to be decided by month-end.

    This was stated by IPL commissioner Rajeev Shukla yesterday during the India-Bangladesh semi-final match in England where the Champions Trophy is under way.

    According to Shukla, who was in conversation with commentators of All-India Radio (AIR) during the India-Bangladesh cricket match, the media rights would be hawked in a bundled form as well as separately. The media rights for IPL include those for TV, online, digital and overseas (outside Indian geographical region).

    Chinese phone maker Vivo, wanting to make a splash in the Indian market and establish a presence, had picked up the title sponsorship for IPL for two years in 2015. Earlier, such sponsors included Indian real estate company DLF, and PepsiCo. The latter had opted out of sponsorship after betting and match-fixing scandals rocked IPL a few years ago.

    A 2016 news report in the Mint newspaper stated that, for the Indian sub-continent, BCCI will award the television rights for 10 years and digital media rights for five years. The competitive bidding process would close on 25 October 2016.

    At present, IPL’s TV broadcast rights are held by Sony Pictures Networks Pvt. Ltd, which will expire in 2017, and the Internet and mobile rights rest with Novi Digital Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, a unit of Star India, for a period of three years till 2017.

    As to whether IPL is contemplating increasing the number of participating teams from the present eight, Shukla replied in the negative. This would mean that the teams from Gujarat and Pune would have to bow out in 2018 as controversy-tainted Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings are likely to stage a comeback after a two-year suspension.

    Shukla also said during the conversation on AIR that BCCI and IPL are contemplating making changes in various criteria to pick and buy cricketers by various franchisee owners from next year.

    The senior BCCI official elaborated that “some restrictions” would be placed on IPL team owners to desist them from picking a rookie player without any experience of BCCI-supported domestic cricket tourneys as it amounted to discrimination of deserving players who have played in Indian domestic cricket tournaments (Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Irani Trophy, etc).

    About the reason behind BCCI agreeing to participate in Champions Trophy (where India would sometime have to play Pakistan, a country regarded back home as abetting and encouraging terrorism against India), Shukla smartly skirted answering directly, preferring to say that BCCI agreed on participation in CT 2017 as it wanted the national team to retain the trophy.

    India is the current holder of the Champions Trophy and the next edition of the tournament would be held in India.

    Shukla, while admitting that India has become a nerve-centre for global cricket contributing sizably to the revenue kitty of cricket’s international governing body ICC, stated that all outstanding financial issues related to revenue sharing would be sorted out soon and amicably between ICC and BCCI.

  • BCCI invites bids for IPL title sponsorship

    MUMBAI: A few brands have been associated with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its money-spinning Indian Premier League as its title sponsor. Among them: real estate giant, DLF, Pepsi and finally Vivo which paid Rs 100 crore annually for it (2016 to 2018).

    Now the cricket body has begun the process of finding a new title sponsor. It placed an ad in the newspapers, saying that it was starting the invitation to tender (ITT) process from 1 June to 21 June.

    The ITT document is available at a non-refundable fee of Rs 300,000 and the bids have to be submitted by 12 noon 27 June 2017 at a specified place mentioned in it or any other place that the board decides. The BCCI has also reserved the right at its discretion to cancel or amend the entire bidding process at any stage.

    The new title sponsorship deal will be for the next five seasons starting from August 2018 to July 2022.

  • ICC Women’s WC camp in Mumbai from 6 June

    MUMBAI: The Indian Women’s Cricket Team will assemble in Mumbai for a preparatory camp from 6-10 June, 2017, ahead of the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 to be held in England & Wales from 24 June – 23 July, 2017.

    The team recently enjoyed an unbeaten streak of 16 matches, the second longest in women’s ODIs. To boost the team’s fielding, the BCCI has appointed Biju George as the Fielding Coach.

    The team will leave on 11 June and arrive in UK one week prior to the official warm-up matches. They will train at Loughborough MCC University and play a practice match against England Women on June 13 before heading to Derbyshire for a camp. The team will be based in Derby and play two warm-up games against New Zealand Women (19 June) and Sri Lanka Women (21 June).

    The complete list of the Support Staff is as below:

    Tushar Arothe: Coach

    Biju George: Fielding Coach

    Tracy Fernandes: Physio

    Radha Krishnaswamy: Trainer

    Rashmi Pawar: Masseuse

    Aarti Nalge: Video Analyst

    Trupti Bhattacharya: Manager

    A media interaction has been planned prior to the departure and below are the details.

     

     Date & Time

    4:00 to 4:20 PM IST

    June 10, 2017 (Saturday)

    Venue

    Sharad Pawar Cricket Academy (BKC, Mumbai)

    Details

    Pre-departure Press Conference

    To be addressed by: 

    Mithali Raj (captain) and Tushar Arothe (Coach) – Indian Women’s Cricket Team

     

     

     

    Team India’s schedule for Group Stage matches:

    Match 2 against England Women: 24 June, County Ground, Derby

    Match 7 against West Indies Women: 29 June, The County Ground, Taunton

    Match 11 against Pakistan Women: 2 July, County Ground, Derby

    Match 14 against Sri Lanka Women: 5 July, County Ground, Derby

    Match 18 against South Africa Women: 8 July, Grace Road, Leicester

    Match 23 against Australia Women: 12 July, Bristol County Ground, Bristol

    Match 27 against New Zealand Women: 15 July, County Ground, Derby

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  • IPL tendering process to commence 17 July; bidding to be fierce

    MUMBAI: The Mukesh Ambani-owned Mumbai Indians pulled of a wafer thin victory against the Rising Pune Supergiants in the final of the Vivo IPL 2017, possibly giving a super boost to the TV ratings that Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN India) will notch up for its telecast. The final match could also be the last time both SPN India and Hotstar could be telecasting the Vivo IPL as both their contracts with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have ended.

    Come 17 July, and the tendering process will start to bag the IPL telecast and rights – both national, international and streaming over the internet. The auction process was supposed to commence last year but was quashed by the Supreme Court appointed Justice Lodha committee.

    The IPL title sponsorship tender will commence earlier on 31 May 2017. Chinese smart phone maker Vivo’s title sponsorship contract too has ended with the latest edition of the IPL.

    The decision on the two dates was taken by the BCCI, the members of the IPL governing council, and the Supreme Court appointed committee of administration on Saturday 20 May.

    Industry experts expect the price for the five year rights – yes, the cycle of the IPL rights has been reduced to five years by the BCCI to further exploit its potential – to reach stratospheric heights. The expectation is that potential bidders like Star India, SPN India, Amazon India, and new player in the game the Discovery promoted D-Sports could end up writing cheque amounts close to double of what was paid for the previous cycle – on a like to like basis.

    For both Star India and SPN India, bagging the rights is crucial. Star India has targets to achieve $1billion EBIDTA by 2020 and one of the tools to help it get there is of course the spread of Hotstar. Over the last two years, it has launched a clutch of sports channels in its bouquet. SPN India too will want to retain the rights as it has been one of its cash cows over the past three to four years, notching up new records in advertising and viewership every year. It too has launched a clutch of channels and has even partnered with ESPN for a channel in India.

    Clearly, the side which bats and bowls well during the tendering process will win.

  • Cleaning up games: BCCI anti-corruption unit hunts down three

    MUMBAI: The Anti Corruption Unit of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been tracking activities of certain individuals, as a result of which, three suspects were arrested in Kanpur, on Thursday.

    Following this operation, the Uttar Pradesh Police Crime Branch could foil the alleged betting attempts of the accused. This was an outcome of the ACU of the BCCI, having worked closely with various law enforcement agencies, who will continue further investigations, in this matter.

    Betting and piracy are the two major challenges that plague games and telecast of sports events.

    As reported by indiantelevision.com earlier, even though the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has assigned the telecast rights for fat sums to broadcasters and streaming platforms in India and almost every major nation, the fact remains that piracy continues to dog the telecast of the IPL as well as most other major sport tournaments.

    Anti-piracy UK-based company Friends MTS kept a tab on the first weekend (7-9 April) of the ongoing IPL 2017 tournament. And, alarmingly, it discovered that more than 1,700 unique URLs were telecasting IPL — illegally. It also detected more than 211 unique servers, 122 pirate streams, 51 hosting sites,  and 23 infrastructure providers serving the 1,700 unique URLs.

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  • IPL 2017: The Piracy Conundrum

    MUMBAI: That the Indian Premier League has become one of the most valuable sports properties globally is a well-documented fact. The audience in India stays glued to its sets late into the night watching action between the various teams. Ditto with the audience in the UK, US, West Indies, Australia (where matches are watched in the wee hours of the morning).

    And, even though the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has assigned the telecast rights for fat sums to broadcasters and streaming platforms in India and almost every major nation, the fact remains that piracy continues to dog the telecast of the IPL as well as most other major sport tournaments.

    Anti-piracy UK-based company Friends MTS kept a tab on the first weekend (7-9 April) of the ongoing IPL 2017 tournament. And, alarmingly, it discovered that more than 1,700 unique URLs were telecasting IPL — illegally. It also detected more than 211 unique servers, 122 pirate streams, 51 hosting sites,  and 23 infrastructure providers serving the 1,700 unique URLs.

    To top it all, while one of the streams was delivering at 1080p, at least 16 of them were being delivered at 720p and 37 of them at 360p. While the first two could offer a near-HD experience on HD sets, the 360p streams could have been watched on tablets, phones and even SD sets comfortably.

    Amongst the top infringing sites that turned up in the Friends MTS test trace: cast4u.tv, jazztv.co,  04stream.com,  darksideiptv.com, 80.82.77.77, 89.248.168.91,  51.255.74.170, aliez-player.gcdn.co,  fblive-a.akamaihd.net,  globiptv.com,  lightspeed.sytes.net , root-iptv.is-found.org, tv2iptv.com and webtv.ws.

    Friends MTS executive vice-president global sales and marketing Paul Hastings says that piracy is bleeding the legitimate pay TV industry which has coughed up top dollar for the IPL rights. “These folks who are watching the IPL streams online on illegal sites or on IPTV platforms are avoiding paying the subscription fees to those who are telecasting legitimately. And this incidence is only rising,” says he.

    His company has been working with satellite platform Sky in the UK and has embedded its ASiD security solution in nearly 10 million STBs.  ASiD uses a sophisticated but lightweight watermarking technology, coupled with Friends MTS’ global monitoring platform, to identify originating subscriber accounts that are being used to retransmit live channels and events.  The technology can be implemented without any changes to the video delivery infrastructure, and enables accounts to be identified and video access blocked within just minutes.

    According to Paul, with sporting rights costs escalating, sports associations and bodies and broadcasters will perforce have to keep a strict watch on economic leakages by pirates in order to get the true value for the content.

    Points out pay TV technology firm Castle Media executive director Vynsley Fernandes: “Finding potential illegal streams on the internet has been the crusade of most CAS/DRM providers and, with advanced techniques in forensic watermarking services, which can identify the source of an illegal stream in under five minutes, it is now being perfected to a fine art. Though, there are no absolute safeguards against a potential illegal streamer posting stream URLs on the internet, there are now excellent ones in finding the offender.”

    Fernandes is assisting MTS Friends as it looks at providing security solutions to India’s bubbling with potential pay TV and streaming services segment.

    “Pay TV, streaming and telco (via video) ARPUs in India can go up if piracy is checked,” says he. “If platforms and broadcasters realize more revenues they will be more open to paying higher fees to acquire rights for the various sports – like cricket, football, kabaddi –  that have established themselves  in the country as well as new sports that are emerging. It will lead to the development of a healthy sports broadcast and overall sports ecosystem.”

    Says a media observer: “In India, Sony Pictures Networks’ India is celebrating its 10th and possibly final year of telecasting the IPL as the new auctioning process for the next five years is on the anvil. Additionally, Hotstar.com has the digital streaming rights. Whoever bags the rights when the bidding ends later this year, will have to ensure every revenue leakage is blocked as the tussle to acquire the IPL is going to send prices to stratospheric heights never seen before. My bet is that the IPL could end up being the most valuable televised sports property ever.”

    Says another tech consultant: “Monetisation is going to be crucial. Hence, the BCCI, the new rights owners and platforms will have to keep a track and block every pirated signal. In India, a lot of the viewing is going to be on the mobile, and that is where a low-pixel signal — from a pirate — can be watched reasonably clearly.”

    As they say, when the stakes are high, you cannot afford to leave any corner uncovered.

    Also Read

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  • SPN India cranks up IPL 10 campaign with fan frenzy films

    MUMBAI: How do you celebrate a tenth birthday? Well, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) India, which has been airing the edge-of-the-seat action filled Indian Premier League for the past 10 years, has chosen to do with a campaign “10 saal aap ke naam”.

    “SPN and Vivo IPL have had a great journey, so far. Over the last nine years, we have seen the tournament grow in terms of stature, viewership and the buzz that it creates, and, hence it was only logical to make the tenth year a grand celebration. The marketing campaign borrows from real life insights on how viewers of Vivo IPL engage and involve themselves with the game. We believe that the fans are instrumental in making this tournament the mega blockbuster that it is, and that is why this year’s campaign is an ode to the Vivo IPL Fa. This campaign is the way of saying thank you to millions of people who made IPL what it is,” says Sony Max cluster senior EVP and business head Neeraj Vyas.

    This year’s matches are to be telecast on Sony Max, Sony Six, and Sony ESPN.

    Thus, a series of six films have been filmed and created encapsulating the fervor and madness of fans across gender, generations and geographies. The films celebrate various types of fans, be it the ‘Antaryami Fan’ who, year after year, makes predictions with confidence and even though all his predictions do not come true, he does not deter from making them again and again; the ‘Vehemi fan’ who fears that if he watches the match his team will lose so every time his team plays he is seen standing outside the door, be it a restaurant, a store or even his own house and the ‘Under Pressure fan’ who will postpone even nature’s call and be uncomfortable but will not budge from the television screen till the last ball is delivered.

    The campaign will run in 4-5 languages — English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu. “The Tamil feed grew enormously last year. Twenty per cent of numbers came from Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry which is very encouraging,” informs Vyas.

    SPN India has brought in top drawer talent for its final innings with the IPL (Its rights deal with the BCCI is ending this year and a fierce bidding exercise between Star, SPN, Dsports, and Amazon is expected to take the price up to stratospheric levels.)

    DDB Mudra was behind the creative of the campaign, while the films were helmed by noted ad film director Hemant Bhandari of Chrome Pictures Media. The anthem was composed under the baton of music composer duo, Salim- Sulaiman, and singer, Benny Dayal belted out the vocals.

    With phrases like “Mahaul sajatey, Haal batatey, Halla machatey”, the Vivo IPL anthem salutes the passion of the zealot who passionately follows the game and cheers every four and six and fall of wicket

    The campaign will roll out on other media outlets too. News and regional channels are expected to be tapped into more. But most importantly is the swathe of channels that the network boast of today, reveals Vyas. “Last year when we started the campaign for season 9, the network had 17 channels and now we have 30 channels under Sony umbrella. We have popular channels. But, we will buy some (slots on the) regional (channels) for sure.”

    The good news for the SPN India is that it has managed to lock in 13 sponsor for IPL season 10. Among these figure: Vivo, Amazon and Vodafone as the co-presenters, CEAT Tyre, wire maker Polycab, Make My Trip, Vimal Paan Masala, Yamaha, Frooti, Voltas, Havells, Parle- products and Yes Bank. And, it looks to be on target to rake in Rs 1,300 crore through sponsorships.

    Vyas says that there was fear that prime minister Narendra Modi demonetisation drive might impact advertisers enthusiasm to put in top dollar. “But, the IPL has such a high recall value that you can’t go wrong is what advertisers have told us and that is why the 13 sponsors,” he expresses.

    A media veteran says that the creative peg that SPN India has taken is clearly going to connect with cricket fans in India and worldwide.

    “Already the player auction saw some high-ticket prices being coughed up by the teams for certain players,” says she. “And, if Sony is going to stoke up the fan frenzy by airing the fan films showing stereotypes with high frequency and reach, one can expect the temperature and viewership for the IPL to only go up this year. Now if only the teams on the field work well to have close finishes, and Sony will be laughing all the way to the bank.”

  • Maxus retains IPL media mandate

    MUMBAI: Maxus has successfully retained the media responsibilities of the Indian Premier League for its 10th edition. Maxus has been the media agency for IPL ever since the league started in 2008. The account will be handled out of Maxus Mumbai office.

    Commenting on the retention, Maxus South Asia managing director Kartik Sharma said, “We are extremely proud and humbled to be chosen as the media agency once again byBCCI. I am grateful to BCCIfor valuing our efforts. We look forward to continue delivering even better results through our media campaigns on IPL.”

    The multi-agency pitch saw participation from other leading media agencies, following which Maxus retained the bImage result for karthik sharma maxususiness.

  • Oppo Mobiles new sponsor of Indian Cricket Team

    MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced Oppo Mobiles India Private Limited as the new team sponsor for the Indian Cricket Team. The mobile manufacturing giant Oppo’s association with BCCI will start from April 2017 for a period of five years. The Oppo deal may reportedly be worth over Rs 538 crore, the amount which Star India had paid BCCI for its deal. (This figure was later confirmed to be Rs 1079 crore.)

    The next deal that the BCCI may sign is for the IPL broadcast rights. The rights are currently with Sony, and will end after this year’s IPL.

    A month before its contract for the Team India’s jersey sponsorship comes to an end in March 2017, Star India’s Chairman and CEO Uday Shankar has set the game up.

    “Given all the volatility, we are indeed concerned about the health of cricket in the days ahead. We have been very proud that our name is carried on the jersey of Team India. But given all the uncertainties, we have decided not to bid for it again. The commitments being asked for are too onerous without any clarity,” Shankar bared a marketing fang in an interview given to Times of India.

    A veteran of many journalistic face-offs earlier and now a master corporate strategist, Shankar’s message to BCCI or Indian cricket’s administrative body was clear, if not politically loaded: forget Team India’s indifferent performances at times on field, we can live with it; it’s the off-field boardroom games that’s making us uneasy to risk our money.