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Tag: Great Khali

  • Continental Wrestling Entertainment to be kick-started by Great Khali to promote wrestling in India

    Continental Wrestling Entertainment to be kick-started by Great Khali to promote wrestling in India

    The Great Khali, who had emerged as the champion at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) IN 2007, has today announced the launch of his Continental Wrestling Entertainment (CWE).

     

    The new venture was formally launched by Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat who invited the tall Khali to kick-start the first event of CWE on February 2016 with a two-day spectacle of international standard fights to be held in Uttarakhand.

     

    The Chief Minister said that Uttarakhand was slated to host the National Games in 2018 and the event in February would also be used to encourage more people from the state to come forward for sports. He said two stadiums were being built for the purpose in Haldwani and Dehradun. Rawat added that he was sending six or seven wrestlers to Punjab to train under the tutelage of Khali at his academy in Jalandhar.

     

    The CWE would initially train around forty wrestlers, Khali whose real name is Dalip Singh Rana and who stands 7 feet 3 inches tall. check this sentence

     

    In fact, Rawat had to stand on a stool to put a shawl around Khali while welcoming him, providing a great photographic moment.

     

    Rawat said “I have always said that the youth is not just our future but also our present and in a young country and state like ours their development and betterment is of prime importance to any ruling dispensation. I was really impressed by what Khali is attempting to do with this very popular modern day version of one of our most traditional sports – Wrestling.”  He said the aim of his youth outreach initiative, #CM4Youth, was to understand the aspirations of the young and draw up programmes to fulfill these.

     

    “Pro-wrestling is very popular with the Uttarakhandi youth. Khali’s own story of his rise from being a very ordinary worker in the hills to being amongst the world’s greatest pro-wrestlers ever through single minded focus, hard work and absolute dedication is nothing short of inspirational”, he added.

     

    Others present included Ranjit Rawat and Haripal Rawat, both conveners of #CM4Youth, IBS CEO Amardeep Singh., and leading sporting luminary Jaspal Rana. The CWE programme will focus on aggressively promoting the sport in India as well as scouting and developing pro-wrestling talent from across the country.

     

    Khali said that talks were on with different television channels who want to cover his events, but declined to give further details.

     

    Commenting on the reason behind this initiative, Khali said: “I have come a long way since my humble beginning as an ordinary stone cutter in the hills. A simple response to a chance question by a Punjab police inspector who passed me one day while I was working along a road, changed my life for ever. He asked me why was I working so hard even after my shift was completed. My response that unlike others I had a bigger stomach to fill and thus needed to work harder than the rest landed me a job in Punjab police. For the first time in my life, when I got my second salary there, I could actually buy a TV; a decision that changed my life forever – I not just got introduced to wrestling through seeing WWE but decided to make it my passion and profession.”

     

    “My journey was not at all simple to say the least. Having gone through all the trials and tribulations of setting out on a journey to conquer the world of pro-wrestling with only my ambition in hand and then being able to rise to the zenith at the world platform, I was determined even while in the United States that I would return to my country and help create the right platform and facilities for my fellow Indians to also make it big in this sport.” Added the wrestler.

     

    He further went on to say that the Uttarakhand CM had agreed to help his endeavour without any pre-conditions as it was a very good initiative for the youth.

     

    The fights which are scheduled for February 2016 will feature both international as well as Indian pro-wrestlers including The Great Khali himself.

     

    Asked why he was not participating in the WWE Live event in India, he indicated that he had not been invited but would love to wrestle with Americans on Indian soil. He said that he had gone through a lot of difficulty when he landed there in 2006 and used to sleep in the ring after the day’s matches as he had no other place to go to!

     

    The spectacle of International standard fights will be held in association with specialist sports and brand management company, ‘Integrated Brand Solutions (IBS)’ and will be supported by Harish Rawat’s ‘#CM4Youth’. IBS is a full service Brand solutions agency dedicated to maximizing experiences and ROI for client brands. With offices in Mumbai, Pune, Dehradun, Delhi, Bangalore, US & UK and through its extensive partner network span across the globe, it ensures seamless geographic and product outreach to discerning clients.

  • Ten Sports undisputed leader in sports TV viewership courtesy WWE

    Ten Sports undisputed leader in sports TV viewership courtesy WWE

    MUMBAI: Ten Sports has been dominating sports television ratings week after week with the only exception being when team India hits the lush green cricket field and another broadcaster is relaying it. That’s the only time when Ten Sports loses the top berth. 

    So what helps the channel garner such high ratings? In three powerful words, it’s the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

    As per S-group (an analytical arm of TAM media research) analysis, Ten Sports is the leader in the sports genre with average weekly viewership of 28 GRPs in the last four weeks. The closest competitor this week was Sony Six, which garnered half the viewership.

     

     

    Ten Sports global CEO Rajesh Sethi and his programming team are the main reason behind that. Repetitiveness is the biggest enemy of quality content, it kills the flair and develops a scenario of same programme, different day. However, the smart programming strategy of Sethi and team has successfully managed to avoid that for over a decade now.

     

    Close to 85 per cent of Ten Sports’ viewership comes from the telecast of WWE matches alone with a duration dedication of only 25 per cent.

     

     

    Sethi asserts, “Ten Sports Network has been the home of World Wrestling Entertainment in India since 2002. Over this period, WWE broadcast has evolved significantly with an increased focus to deliver quality to viewers. The broadcast delay from USA to India has completely been reduced. Ten Sports is now offering WWE RAW live in India. The initial inhibitions that the time difference will affect viewership numbers has been dispelled with very good ratings for the Live airing, which airs Tuesday mornings at 5.30 am India Time.”

     

    Ten Sports has sealed a five-year deal with WWE, which makes the fight sport their exclusive asset till 2019. Both Ten Sports and WWE came together in recent times to launch numerous on-ground initiatives to popularize the sport in India.

     

    “The new agreement between WWE and Ten Sports has seen a host of new initiatives taken by the broadcaster. New shows have been introduced with Ten Sports bringing popular show Main Event to India from January of this year. NXT, which brings the best action from upcoming WWE Superstars and Total Divas, a WWE reality show have been getting a major push from a marketing standpoint and not only existing viewers are taking to this programme but these shows are helping cater to new audiences,” adds Sethi.

     

    He further informs, “RAW and Smackdown, the established marquee shows of WWE continues to garner great ratings. With prime time airings getting ratings of almost 1 TVR, we can safely say that WWE has established itself as a leader in sports entertainment. These numbers are second only to LIVE India Cricket and WWE is closing this gap as well. Ten Sports reaches around 150 million households across the Indian sub-continent and garnering such ratings in a very diverse and unique market like India for an American product like the WWE speaks volumes to what Ten Sports has done over time to making this product acceptable at first to an Indian to now becoming a part of the viewer’s habit.”

     

    Ten Sports has started offering these flagship shows in shorter versions, including a customized one hour RAW programme called RAW Sunday Dhamaal.

     

    RAW Sunday Dhamaal is positioned as a weekend premier show with a local flavour tailor-made for the Indian audience. There has been a new studio designed solely for the show with popular faces anchoring the show. Bollywood is a religion in India and Raw Sunday Dhamaal has consistently been using Bollywood and top celebrities to engage fans and add a new flavour to the shows. This marriage between WWE and Bollywood has seen celebrities including Akshay Kumar, Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor in the RAW Sunday Dhamaal studios. WWE Superstar and 2015 Money In The Bank winner, Sheamus will also make an appearance on RAW Sunday Dhamaal soon.

     

    “WWE in other languages and a push on digital platforms is also priority for Ten Sports. Smackdown has launched in Hindi and this weekend airing is being well accepted by new viewers. With India being such a diverse market, Ten Sports is targeting a specific territory by territory approach to launching shows in different languages. Ten Sports and Zee Group, whose channels have a presence across 650 million households across the world will use group regional channels and will in due course, broadcast more WWE shows across multiple languages creating an increased affinity towards WWE. This approach will take WWE to the hinterlands wooing a new, non-traditional viewer base. On the digital front, VOD offerings on tensports.com along with leveraging social media from increased interaction and engagement with fans are the priority areas,” he informs.

     

    Fans selected through contests have been rewarded with the opportunity to not only interact with WWE superstars and divas but travel to watch WWE LIVE events across the globe.

     

    Further, as per the analysis carried out below, the viewership coming from WWE matches has been on an increasing trend for the past four years. From 5.7 GRPs in 2012, WWE obtains 9.2 GRPs per week in 2015. This analysis has been done for every 1000 minutes of WWE telecast so as to normalize the duration factor.

     

     

    The ad rate of a 10-second slot during normal WWE programming fluctuate between Rs 60,000 – 80,000 while for a Wrestlemania or Summerslam sometimes it touches Rs 1 lakh mark too informs a source closely dealing with WWE’s media planning.

     

    Baseline director & co-founder R Ramakrishnan feels that WWE is here to grow. “WWE is an evolving property, not only television viewership but licensing and merchandising will also grow. Live events will play a vital role in the growth. We saw Big Shaw and John Cena travelling to India and both Ten Sports and WWE will endeavor in launching several new initiatives. Credit must be given to Ten Sports for smartly handling the property over the years,” he opines.

     

    WWE is one of the very few American sports, which is widely spoken about in India. Kids start with WWE card games and then gradually with age change to Playstation and X-box. After United States and United Kingdom, India is the largest market for WWE. Khali’s induction in the sport has already raised the bar and got more people talking about the sport India.

     

    Overall World Wrestling Entertainment has a lot of room for growth and Ten Sports will certainly leave no stones unturned to generate as much revenue as they can from the sport.