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Tag: Cricket

  • ESPNcricinfo unveils new features with refreshed look

    ESPNcricinfo unveils new features with refreshed look

    KOLKATA: As cricket emerges back in action, ESPNcricinfo unveiled its all-new robust digital cricket experience on mobile. The new app reinforces ESPNcricinfo's core value proposition of delivering wholesome cricket news and information, along with compelling match coverage and surround content that goes beyond just scores updates for fans.

    Featuring a sharp redesign suited to enhance user experience, the app is supported by an all-new intuitive content feed, richer interface, compelling visuals, and unparalleled storytelling, serving as an all-in-one digital access point for all things cricket. In addition to the latest and most comprehensive updates around the India-Australia test series, the app will be offering the widest range of coverage across the world including IPL, PSL, BPL, BBL, CPL, ICC Cricket World Cup, County Championship, Ranji Trophy, and Sheffield Shield, to name a few.

    A key innovation to the user experience features the introduction of a live score carousel, offering sharp updates on the best of cricketing action. A highlight here is that the carousel is synchronised to the global cricketing space offering fans of the sport a panoramic view into the latest happening across global cricket through one easy swipe interface.

    Next, identifying the rise in demand for instant match updates and in-depth narratives around cricket, ESPNcricinfo has introduced a whole new live cricket score card interface in addition to an enhanced story reading experience. This feature enables fans to catch critical near-time score updates along with expertly crafted long reads, along with in-depth perspective specially curated by the in-house editorial team.

    Lastly, as a high-point to the ongoing cricketing action, the new app will also host video match highlights from the India-Australia test series, enabling fans have a one stop access point to unique match analyses and video highlights to witness and relieve defining in-play moments including best wickets, close catches, and more.

    With significant performance improvements, other new features of the app include also include access to major sections of espncricinfo.com, along with easy access to:

    ·        Fast live scores and ball-by-ball commentary

    ·        Notification updates for live cricket matches

    ·        Easy to read cricket news

    ·        Cricket videos including highlights, analyses, interviews, and press conferences

    ·        Opinion and analysis from experts such as Gautam Gambhir, Tom Moody, Sanjay Manjrekar, Ajit Agarkar, Aakash Chopra, Deep Dasgupta and more

    “With technology being central to our lives, and the world becoming more interconnected than ever, we found it imperative to deliver a distinctive product that allows fans to experience the best of global cricketing action, all in one place. With the app, sports enthusiasts everywhere will now have access to a myriad of incredible cricketing content,” ESPN India and South Asia VP-head Ramesh Kumar said.

  • India-Australia tour doubles up viewership on SonyLIV

    India-Australia tour doubles up viewership on SonyLIV

    KOLKATA: The India tour of Australia is underway and is making waves in a cricket-worshipping nation such as ours. Post a rough start, the Men in Blue are back to winning ways and have garnered a remarkable response on SonyLIV. 

    The high-octane tournament has more than doubled up viewership on SonyLIV, coupled with five times rise in daily average subscriptions on the platform. With simultaneous streams across English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, 50 per cent of viewership have flowed in from Hindi and regional languages feeds for the event so far. 

    Advertisers have also reacted with great interest, with as many as over 70 brands coming on board for the cricketing event. With brands like Winzo and McDowell’s No.1 Soda being brought in as co-powered sponsors, the platform has locked in businesses across categories like insurance, banking, gaming, tourism, electronics, FMCGs and more. Some of these sponsors are Proctor & Gamble, Lenovo, Seagram’s Royal Stag Packaged Drinking Water, Association of Mutual Funds of India, IIFL amongst others. Additionally, advertisers like Apple, Castrol, Horlicks, Dell, Vimal Elaichi, RBI, SBI Mutual Funds, Berger Paints, ICICI Pru Life & Mutual Funds, Australia Tourism, Acko General Insurance, and more have also come forward to advocate their support for the ongoing India Tour of Australia. 

    "The India tour of Australia has opened to a thunderous response from the audience and advertisers alike. Riding on the increase in viewership, we are expecting a 50-60 per cent revenue growth on the platform over the last series. We are already sold out for ODIs and T20s and have only 15-20 per cent inventory left for the Test matches. Cricket has always been a major consumption driver for us, and we hope to see the reactions spiralling in the upcoming matches of the tour," SonyLIV digital business ad sales revenue head Ranjana Mangla commented. 

    After registering their first win of the tour in the third ODI, Team India will now look to dominate in the T20I matches. The T20I will be followed by the much-awaited four Test matches for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. 

  • India tour of Australia moves into second leg with 3 T20I matches

    India tour of Australia moves into second leg with 3 T20I matches

    KOLKATA: Sony Pictures Sports Network (SPSN), the official broadcaster of India tour of Australia, is all set to air the three upcoming T20I matches between the two cricketing giants, from 4 December, 2020. The T20I matches will be broadcast live and exclusive on Sony Ten 1 in English, Sony Ten 3 in Hindi and Sony Six channels in English, Tamil and Telugu from 12.30 pm IST.

    After a high-flying finish in the third ODI, where Team India handsomely registered their first win of the tour, the Men in Blue seem to have found their rhythm leading to the three T20I matches. The second white ball series will be a tight knit contest as both teams will take on the field with renewed focus and motivation to turn the tide in their favour ahead of the all-important test matches.

    David Warner and Pat Cummins will miss the rest of Australia's white-ball matches against India, while D'Arcy Short has officially joined the T20I squad. Men in Blue will look forward to turn the series in their favour as they hope to bank on forms of some key T20I players such as Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Mohammad Shami and Shikhar Dhawan among others. Australia are currently ranked number one in the ICC Men’s T20I rankings and with the ICC Men's T20 World Cup scheduled for next year, these matches will form a crucial part for both the teams’ preparations in this format.

    The T20I will be followed by the much-awaited four test matches for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The first Test will be a day/night affair, from 17-21 December at the Adelaide Oval. It will be India's first away day/night Test, adding historic significance to the contest. The other three test matches will be held at Melbourne Cricket Ground, Sydney Cricket Ground and the Gabba.

  • WinZO onboards as sponsor for India-Australia series on SonyLiv

    WinZO onboards as sponsor for India-Australia series on SonyLiv

    MUMBAI: Homegrown e-sports platform WinZO has come onboard as the official co-powered sponsor of the India tour of Australia on SonyLIV. This is the first time WinZO will be sponsoring a major sports event on a digital platform.

    India’s tour of Australia, starting on 27 November 2020, is the Men in Blue’s first international tour after nine months post the global Covid2019 pandemic lockdown; Team India last played New Zealand in February 2020. The tour is two months long, comprising a three-match ODI series, followed by a three-match T20 series, and a four-match Test series. 

    WinZo Games co-founder Saumya Singh Rathore said, “India is a market with over a billion cricket fans who have been hungry for cricketing action for the last nine months. Post IPL, it is great to see the resuming of international tournaments as well and it’s a proud moment for us to associate with the first India-Australia international series of the year. WinZO is always committed to bringing the best entertainment to Bharat.”

    SonyLIV head ad sales revenue – digital business Ranjana Mangla said, “We are really delighted to have WinZO as a co-powered sponsor for the India tour of Australia on SonyLIV. This is a big overseas tournament that’s sure to drive viewership on the platform and be of value to both brands.”

    WinZO was recently in the news for its $18 million series B funding led by global interactive entertainment fund, Makers Fund, New York-based Courtside Venture, and Steve Pagliuca, the co-chairman of Bain Capital and investor in Epic Games – developers of the massively popular Fortnite. All these players have made their maiden investments in the Indian market through WinZO.  

    WinZO aims to create a highly personalised and localised social gaming platform powered by micro transactions, where users can enjoy multiple engaging gaming formats and fantasy sports in 10+ regional languages with their friends or strangers online.

    Founded by Paavan Nanda and Rathore, WinZO has been successful in delivering strong positive unit economics in the Indian gaming ecosystem and has continued to support the gaming ecosystem by setting-up a game developers fund 2.0 of a $5 million corpus to fund projects in interactive entertainment space built by game developers.

  • IPL has 86 million fans in India: Ormax Media study

    IPL has 86 million fans in India: Ormax Media study

    MUMBAI: Chennai Super Kings (CSK) is the IPL team with the biggest and most hardcore fanbase, a study by Ormax Media has revealed. With 26.8 million fans, the MS Dhoni-led CSK has emerged as the strongest franchise, as per the findings of the IPL Franchise Fans report, based on a research conducted among 3,200 urban respondents across 23 states in India. 

    The data was collected over the course of the eight weeks of IPL 2020. The study pegs the number of fans across the eight IPL franchises at 86 million (8.6 crore). The study defines a franchise fan as someone who has a clear favourite team, is emotionally connected with it, watches its matches from start to finish, and discusses the team and its players online or offline.

    Following in the wake of CSK is this season’s champion Mumbai Indians (MI) at 24.8 million devotees. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) ranks third, with 13.3 million enthusiasts. Between them, these three franchises account for 75 per cent of the total fan base, while the remaining five contribute to the balance 25 per cent.

    64 per cent (55 million) of the total franchise fans are males, while the balance 36 per cent (31 million) are females.

    CSK and RCB have the most gender-balanced fan base, with the proportion of female fans being the highest at 40 per cent each. Nationwide popularity of their star players (MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli respectively) contributes to their stronger female fan base. Mumbai Indians leads Chennai Super Kings by a slender margin when it comes to the male fan base, but the latter takes the overall number one position because of its stronger female following.

    Ormax Media founder & CEO Shailesh Kapoor said: “Apart from viewership, a definitive measure of the success of a sports league is whether the teams playing in it manage to build a sizeable fan base over the years. A strong fan base is eventually the key for a profitable franchise, because it offers higher monetisation opportunities through sponsorships, ticket sales, merchandising, licensing and other such avenues. Over the last 13 years, IPL has done very well, and the fan base estimates of the top two franchises suggest that they are now two of the strongest sports teams across the world. It’s for the other franchises to learn from the success story of CSK and MI and develop a strategy to widen their fan base in the coming years.”

  • IPL season 13 clocks 400 billion minutes of consumption

    IPL season 13 clocks 400 billion minutes of consumption

    Mumbai: Star India delivers the biggest IPL ever in the history of the tournament. From swashbuckling young talent, exciting clashes, to nail-biting double super overs in a single day, season-13 was nothing short of electrifying. With fans enjoying matches from the comfort of their homes, Dream11 IPL 2020 has set a viewership record with an overall consumption increase of 23 per cent *versus 2019. Television viewership reached an outstanding 31.57mn average impressions.

    Capitalizing on the regional appeal, five independent language channel offerings – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bangla, and Kannada, contributed immensely to the increased viewership growth of Dream11 IPL 2020. The regional offering across languages has been received well by viewers and has increased the viewership by 28 per cent over last year.

    “It’s the biggest IPL the nation has seen and the response from fans and advertisers has been stupendous. The record-breaking opening week gave us the ideal start and laid the foundation for a record breaking season. We are extremely delighted that this season has been the biggestever in terms of viewership, engagement and ad sales. Enhanced story-telling, localisation, contextually relevant marketing and technology innovations formed the pillars of our offering. We are encouraged by the growth we have seen in southern markets driven by our regional feeds and higher consumption across demographics especially in rural markets and amongst kids,” Star India head – sports Sanjog Gupta said. “Season 13 witnessed some explosive matches which were aptly supplemented by innovative programming, world-class production – both remote and on-ground. This wouldn’t have been possible without the fantastic work done by the team at BCCI in staging the tournament under extenuating circumstances and seamless functioning from our teams inside the bio-secure bubbles in India and UAE,”he added.

    The record-breaking start to the Dream11 IPL 2020 started with the campaign ‘EkSaathWaaliBaat’. The campaign aimed to uplift the mood of the nation by bringing people together for the biggest cricketing tournament of the year. Star Sports, India’s leading sports broadcaster – pulled out all stops to ensure viewers and fans are offered an unparalleled experience of the Dream11 IPL 2020 from the comfort of their homes.

    The season began with sold-out inventory, with 18 sponsors and 114 advertisers onboard, setting an optimistic tone to a massively successful season ahead. Star Sports pulled off the telecast of one of the biggest sporting spectacles in 2020 in just six weeks during an ongoing pandemic and a lot of uncertainties.

    With fans enjoying the matches from the comfort of their homes, Star took it upon them to make sure fans of all ages and demographics were hooked to the 2020 edition. This resulted in women and kids registering impressive viewership growth of24 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. Star India’s effort to offer unmatched engagement for its viewers with state-of-the-art product innovations such as surround-in-stadia fan cheer, specialized broadcast feeds, and fan walls have received a great response and got fans closer to the game than ever before. Chapterisation of the tournament via themes such as Fan Week and Rivalry Week, along with a slate of programming including franchise shows continued to draw IPL aficionados throughout the tournament. The revamped Select Dugout this year continued to target core cricket viewers and also registered significant growth in consumption.

  • This cricket season, Pepsi toasts Indians’ love for the sport

    This cricket season, Pepsi toasts Indians’ love for the sport

    NEW DELHI: This sporting season, beverage brand Pepsi is joining the celebrations and paying tribute to India’s undying passion for cricket. The brand has unveiled a new digital film in a nod to India’s most loved sport, asking fans to enjoy Pepsi while they watch a game of cricket.

    The film features Bollywood superstar Salman Khan talking about how every Indian will drink Pepsi, with the beverage now being available at Rs 50 for 1.25 litres.

    A PepsiCo India spokesperson said, “Pepsi has always innovated and communicated with consumers through those passion points relevant to them – cricket being one of the key passion points for today’s generation. We are delighted to celebrate India’s love for cricket and the undying spirit of the cricket fan through the new film by asking every fan to drink Pepsi and enjoy the sport with family and friends.”

    The ad film is an extension of the brand’s Har Ghoont Mein Swag campaign, and the introduction of the 1.25 litres pack at Rs 50 ensures moments of togetherness for friends and family during cricket matches and make them more memorable this season.  

     

     
     
     

     
     
     
     
     

     
     

     
     
     

     
     

    A post shared by Pepsi India (@pepsiindia) on

     

  • Chennai Super Kings is driving IPL13’s social media popularity: Wavemaker Mesh Report

    Chennai Super Kings is driving IPL13’s social media popularity: Wavemaker Mesh Report

    NEW DELHI:  IPL buzz volume is on track to go two times from the last season, reaching more than 60 million, indicated the Wavemaker Mesh report, released recently. Last year, the buzz volume was 37 million. 

    The report is curated by Wavemaker using real-time data intelligence solution via reading real-time environmental signals on multiple data-points. This season report has data sources from multiple consumer touchpoints across Digital ecosystem ranging from Social Listening, Google Searches, Website visits, BARC, Video analytics in partnership with VIDOOLY, Interaction data points collected from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

    The report also indicates that the social buzz of the cricketing extravaganza is mirroring TVR and the next two weeks might see a huge surge there, after momentous buzz fatigue. Chennai Super Kings is driving the league’s social media popularity. 

    The report also highlighted the top 10 most loved ads; in pecking order: Dream11, Oppo, Tata Motors, Samsung, Paytm First Games, Gulf Oil, Make My Trip, Lifebuoy, Bingo, and Gamezy. 

    Additionally, cricket fantasy leagues are enjoying never before seen engagement with 90+ million web traffic and 300 million Google searches for the top 5 leagues in September 2020. 


     

  • Star Sports CEO Gautam Thakar steps down

    Star Sports CEO Gautam Thakar steps down

    KOLKATA: Within a few days of Uday Shankar stepping down, another top-rung professional has called it quits at Walt Disney owned Star India. According to sources, Gautam Thakar has stepped down as Star Sports CEO to start his own venture.

    Those close to the development say that Thakar’s departure was not a question of if, but when. However, his last date at India’s largest sports broadcaster has not been decided yet. In the interim, Star TV Network executive vice president Sanjog Gupta has stepped in to handle the sports division.

    Thakar was appointed Star Sports CEO back in 2018. During his career, which spans over two decades, he has worked with renowned brands like LivingSocial, eBay, P&G. He has an MBA from IIM Lucknow and a Bachelor’s in commerce from Sydenham College, Mumbai.

  • BharatMatrimony ads draw parallels between cricket & marriage

    BharatMatrimony ads draw parallels between cricket & marriage

    NEW DELHI: BharatMatrimony, a leading online matrimony player, is known for contextual content during IPL and often rides on topical news. The brand is again back with its cool contextual posts driving social engagement and this time it is relating cricket with marriage. BharatMatrimony is wooing fans with relationship lessons from cricket and IPL humor besides clever creative content on interesting match moments.

     

     

    For instance, the brand recently shared a creative that mentions – 'Cricket is a game of two competing sides, in marriage, husband and wife are on the same side.' BharatMatrimony has been sharing such humourous and witty creatives for a few days now.

     

     

    These creatives are being released on the social media platforms and aim to build a deeper connection of the brand with the audiences through topical marketing.

     

     

    “IPL came after months of lockdown and we knew that people were going to be glued to the TV. Besides, the rapid pace of digital adoption and the lack of outdoor entertainment during Covid-19 offered a good opportunity for us to ride the buzz by sharing relatable content to the audience. And they seem to be loving it. As a brand, we constantly look for opportunities to spark or add to a conversation. Cricket and BharatMatrimony are a perfect match,” explains Matrimony.com GM – marketing Rajasekar KS.

     

     

    The matrimony brand is clearly trying to leverage the cricket fever and create traction for the brand. Interestingly, the creatives are a witty take on cricket and unlike a lot other posts and ads doing rounds on social media.

     

     

    In March 2020 also, the brand garnered a lot of attention from viewers for it's relevant messaging for Covid2019. From "Spread the message, don't spread the virus" on the eve of lockdown to "It's all in your hands" that talks about the choice to stay at home and fight the virus, not to speak of washing hands with soap frequently; to tips on staying safe to sharing helpline numbers, has been posting relevant content to engage with the people.

     

     

    BharatMatrimony has been a very old hand in this category and has done several interesting campaigns in the past that were well received by the audiences.