MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports (ESS) clinched two Gold and two Silver awards for its in-house on-air campaigns at the recent Promax Asia Awards that honours the industry‘s best communications campaigns.
The sportscaster has won a total of 14 awards during the year which includes four at Promax International USA and six at PromaxBDA Awards India.
ESS MD Peter Hutton said, “It‘s excellent that our creative team have received further recognition for their consistently high level of original work.”
2010, the year of the tweet, comes to a close with Indian sport in much better shape for the New Year, with the Commonwealth Games leaving behind a legacy of completed stadia and some rather more cautious administrators. Add Delhi‘s new monuments to the vision, or something, of Suresh Kalmadi to the opening of the new Grand Prix track and the investments in cricket facilities across the country, and the overall picture for the infrastructure of Indian sport looks much more optimistic.
Though stadium builders have been busy, sporting performance has not been as consistent despite the abundance of talent available. The Indian cricket team has gone into a series of tournaments with one hand tied behind their back as the board continually “rotate” their tired squad. That rotation has lowered television ratings of the bilateral tours with advertisers understandably preferring to bet on the quality of the ICC events and the bigger series against Australia and South Africa rather than gamble on the questionable selections for tours to Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and the rest. A tour without Sachin, Dhoni and Harbajan is not an easy sell.
The form on the pitch also affects the returns of the broadcasters, even if most tours are largely pre-sold. The three Indian cricketing high points for 2010 all came on Neo Sports, the home test series against Australia with its terrific finish in Mohali, the win in the Asia Cup and a home victory in January against South Africa.
The disappointments were spread between the broadcasters, Neo‘s home ODI series with Australia suffering from poor weather, while on Ten Sports India lost twice to the home side and failed to make the final of the triangular in Zimbabwe, then again lost a triangular in Sri Lanka (winning only 2 of 5 games) and the biggest disappointment of all, the struggles on Star Cricket in the ICC‘s T20 tournament when India lost to Sri Lanka, West Indies and Australia.
Away from national team cricket, ESPN Star Sports gambled on an expensive marketing campaign to breathe life into the Champions League and were rewarded with much improved ratings, though the initial billion dollar price tag still dominates the industry perception of the event as over-priced.
The IPL managed to squeeze in yet more commercial content with mid-over advertising breaks. It would be nice to think that those forced breaks will go the way of the televised post game parties come the new IPL season in April.
This year‘s tournament is going to be very keenly watched by the industry, potentially overshadowed by the World Cup that immediately precedes it and, of course, missing its chief cheerleader. IPL life without Lalit will never be the same, but the world’s most remarkable sporting story of the last decade is one that the BCCI tamper with at their peril.
The ratings game for 2011 will be an interesting battle with ESPN Star Sports having the upper hand in terms of year round events. They have the cricket World Cup through February and March, then India‘s prime time tour to England in the Summer, the Champions League in September as well as the mouthwatering prospect of India in Australia in December.
Ten Cricket has what should be an excellent ODI series of India in South Africa in January, then India in West Indies in May, while Neo has a long period away from the limelight before India‘s home series against England and the West Indies dominating October to December. Centre of attention for Neo will be the much awaited IPO rather than their cricket content in 2011.
There‘s plenty of interest off the pitch in the next year for the industry, with virtually all the cricket boards set to go to market for the next five years of television rights sales. Neo enters this negotiation period with the advantage of having the Indian home rights all secured already and ESPN Star Sports secure in their long term deals with the ICC and the Champions League.
As a result, the focus of attention will be the other nine national team boards. Some of the existing deals end in 2012, some in 2013, but the next 12 months will be key in determining where the bulk of cricket content will end up with some negotiations already underway.
Of the nine boards coming up for grabs, Ten currently holds five (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies, Zimbabwe), ESPN Star Sports two (England and Australia), Neo one (Bangladesh) and Sony one (New Zealand). For each broadcaster there is the challenge of judging the valuation trend of bilateral cricket as that trend underpins the price that they‘ll be prepared to pay.
Though competition between broadcasters will no doubt help keep the prices up for the various boards, the advertising money is suffering a “flight to quality” with a concentration on the prime time Indian tours, the ICC events, the IPL and the Champions League.
The ICC, Champions League and IPL events effectively have a secure “window” (even if the IPL‘s is not official) where no other cricket fights for viewers’ attention. As a result the remainder of the international cricket calendar is squeezed into an increasingly small number of months, which can only further damage the ratings for bilateral, non Indian cricket. In December, for example, Zee‘s ad sales team have had the considerable challenge of trying to raise money on Pakistan v South Africa and Sri Lanka v West Indies at a time when both clashed with India playing at home. These problems will only increase in the next five years as bilateral cricket competes for dates in shortened seasons.
Away from cricket, Hero Honda‘s investment in the Hockey World Cup paid off with great national attention and showed the advantage of investing in non cricket events. Big time hockey returned in December with the Champions Trophy held in India.
The sale of those broadcast rights will be the first of the content battles this year and will give an indication of the funds available to the major buyers. Meanwhile, Indian hockey has overcome the criticism of having a lack of organisation, by now having two seperate organisations. Hopefully one of them will create a domestic format and a national team calendar that creates year round interest, with the Nimbus franchise based initiative an imaginative development.
In football, the headhunting of Kushal Das as the new CEO of the Indian federation was a very welcome symbol of the gradual transformation of the national body into a more organised, professional and accountable organisation. The very fact that the national league fixtures were for the first time issued for the whole year before the start of the season is a very positive indication that Indian football is finally beginning to enter the modern age. However, the “stars” of the national team are not part of this season‘s national league, with Bob Houghton‘s personal influence in the Indian game shown by his ability to take the team into a long camp for the Asia Cup event, where India enter with little hope but plenty of good wishes.
The IMG-Reliance deal to support the next decade of Indian football could be exactly what is needed, a long term investment that will hopefully deal with infrastructure challenges and create the vehicle to bring new money and excitement into the Indian version of the sport. The excellent development stories in the last year behind the professional clubs in Pune and Shillong show the potential for sensible footballing investments.
However, a primary challenge of the new agency will be to create a strong enough format that will overcome historical credibility issues and find suitable broadcaster support; it‘s easy to forget that the IPL revolution wouldn‘t have happened without Kunal Das Gupta‘s decision to invest so heavily for Sony despite the industry cynics. A similar long term broadcasting vision is needed to support the long term development of Indian football and hockey.
In international football, the big sale for the Indian territory will be the European Championships rights for 2012. Last time round the event was a huge success for ESPN Star Sports and reinforced their aggressive position on the World Cup. There is plenty of noise around the Premier Leauge and Champions League, but it‘s only the World Cup and European Championships that seriously affect the ratings and advertising markets in India.
In terms of sporting content being made available to viewers, one of the most welcome signs from 2010 was the success of the Total Sports Asia sale of the Spanish national football team TV rights to a Bangla language channel and Procam‘s work with Times Now to develop horse racing content. The imagination shown by these agencies makes the point that although the majority of international content will always head to conventional locations, “sports” content does not always need to be on the big sports channels.
Champions League cricket on Disney worked very well and experiments of this nature help grow a sporting audience as well as keeping everyone in the industry on their toes. Despite the increasing relevance (and audience share) of Neo Sports, and the growth in Ten‘s portfolio of channels (golf is still promised to follow), there are still plenty of sports events not available to an Indian audience. American football, a lot of the NBA, many of the Premier League games, NHL ice hockey, Manchester United TV and international athletics content are all not available live on India‘s hundreds of channels unlike neighbouring markets such as the Middle East, Singapore and Hong Kong.
This will be a very challenging year for the Indian sports business, with broadcasters and DTH platforms needing a clearer focus on a HD and 3D strategy as well as taking on the challenge of providing increasing content on broadband and mobile in India. The cricket World Cup may take a large amount of advertising money out of the market, but there are plenty of other options to claim attention in a busy year.
2010 has been a relatively low spending year for all the broadcasters; it‘s unlikely they will have that choice in 2011.
MUMBAI: 2009 was the year to be in a different industry. ESPN-Star‘s billion dollar investment in cricket‘s Champions League made the Dubai property market look a safe bet. The IPL riches were diverted into the pockets of South African travel agents. In the ICC‘s showpiece event, India‘s world champion 20-20 team batted so slowly they turned into the No. 1 Test team. India‘s hockey team fell so low, the world rankings needed a second page. The Commonwealth Games promises India Gold medals for bad publicity and even WWE‘s Khali lost whatever it was he‘d won the year before.
Add that to world economic woes, rampant news channel piracy, illegal websites, Pakistan cricket, rain in the West Indies and having to move house, and you‘ve got my year to forget.
On the positive side, 2010 is the year of the big event for Indian sports channels. The Hero Honda hockey World Cup, the IPL, the ICC 20-20, the FIFA soccer World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, India‘s tour of South Africa and the Asian Games all tumble after each other.
The advertising incomes are looking healthier, DTH numbers are growing month on month and the range of big non cricket events can help change the perception that only cricket delivers value.
2009 was the year when hardly any major new sports deals were done in India. The one exception was Nimbus‘s extension of the BCCI contract, a smart piece of negotiating by the Nimbus team that perhaps signifies a levelling of expectation from the cricket boards. That reality check on price is needed, but the doom and gloom on the value of Test and ODI cricket has been overplayed. The ratings still deliver remarkably consistently for meaningful cricket between well balanced teams in whatever format of the game.
One of the less heralded legacies of the “Lalit Modi era” has been the quiet removal of the concept of each Test playing side playing each other Test playing side home and away. Zimbabwe and Bangladesh‘s best chance of seeing India these days is by booking a holiday in Goa. The BCCI is happy to travel to the smaller cricketing nations (giving Bangladesh and Zimbabwe the boost of TV and sponsor income), but they‘re not going to waste their precious home games on one-sided matches. It might not suit the ICC, but it works for both the BCCI and the other boards.
2010 should finally see the unveiling of cricket‘s next six-year plan of fixtures, and what will hopefully see a “flight to quality”. More matches that promise even contests between well matched sides rather than meaningless three-day Tests and ODIs that are won by the toss.
2009‘s seen plenty of talk of defending Test match cricket. My pet obsession is seeing how many Test matches are being scheduled to play Monday-Friday, as if designed to stop people watching them. The only people these matches suit are the administrators who get home for the weekend. Hopefully 2010 will see success in the pink ball, day night experiments and we will be on the way to Test cricket being played in prime time.
The best piece of rescheduling I‘ve seen for some time is the Pakistan-Australia Tests in July 2010, which will now happen in England and will make the matches happen in prime time for the sub-continent audience. At a stroke, they become much more valuable for the sport as so many more people will be able to watch them.
Pakistan‘s varied itinerary also saw the debut of Dubai Sports city as an international stadium. It‘s round the corner from my house, so I am slightly biased, but I believe it‘s the best cricket stadium in Asia for the viewing public. One of my hopes for 2010 is that it gets to see some regular cricket rather than sit as a dusty monument to Dubai‘s dreams.
Away from cricket in 2009, the world hockey federation (the FIH) have shown faith in India to deliver a hockey World Cup that can revitalise the sport in the country. The evidence so far has been remarkably positive. Investment from sponsors (via the Commune agency) has poured in and the Hero Honda World Cup will be a true opportunity for the Indian game.
The Indian team are showing signs of progress (third in the champions challenge). Hopefully, home conditions and passionate crowds can work in their favour and the final of the tournament in March will overshadow the start of the IPL on the same day.
Zee Sports deserves full marks for bravery in their attempt to showcase Indian football. Plenty have tried and failed to turn the undoubted passion for Indian football into a marketable property. The emotion and quality on show at the Nehru Cup in 2009 is an indication that this is not a lost cause. However, the sport needs to learn from the positive qualities of the Nehru Cup. Full crowds, matches to care about, prime time content all come together as part of the equation that can make the sport work.
International football is certainly gaining ground in some areas of India, even if the viewing figures don‘t really back that statement up. Premium Indian advertisers are beginning to spend on the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and the BPL. Wealthy Delhi and Mumbai kids all seem to have an English or Spanish football shirt in their wardrobe, and the FIFA world Cup in South Africa should be a superb event.
The international football market is licking its lips at the prospect of an Indian audience buying more of those shirts. The research doesn‘t currently support the emotion. Premier league and UEFA Champions League figures are showing no signs of growth, but they are showing signs that people care more.
The soccer World Cup can only help the process in 2010. I do believe ESPN-Star overpaid with their $48 million bid for three years of Premier League football from 2010-2012, but I remain very happy to watch them every weekend.
One of the sporting stories of the year for 2009 came in a sport that I care very little about. Formula 1 tends to leave me cold, but I love an underdog. As a result Vijay Mallya‘s Force India perked even my interest with their achievements in 2009. To take a podium place and come so close to a first place was remarkable, particularly when you see the sort of funding that the big teams have. As we move towards an Indian Grand Prix and the new circuit on the edge of Delhi, then there is considerable potential for growth around Indian motorsport and its talented young drivers.
Indian golf has some passionate supporters in the industry and 2010 promises more Asian tour events in the country as well as more Indian golfers succeeding on a world stage. Again, from a television industry perspective, we don‘t really see the numbers on a weekly basis but the passionate and committed golf viewer certainly wants more, and the current structure of Indian sports channels does not fulfil that need.
Though sporting prowess on the field has a remarkable effect on the value of what we show, the real test for the Indian market is how quickly television sport is allowed to move away from being an advertising supported industry to a subscriber supported industry.
The lack of accountability and the issues with collections in the cable industry has frustrated the growth of the Indian television sports business. DTH is a true sign of hope, with a viewer choosing and paying for his channel rather than a cable operator choosing for a viewer, and only occasionally paying. The closer that paying relationship between the end consumer and the sports channel, the more chance we have of justifying varied and stimulating content that people actually want to watch.
Indian sports television has come a long way in the last 15 years since I sat watching Chinese football on Prime Sports but unable to watch the Premier league. Yet there is still huge amount of quality sport inside and outside India that is not seen on TV by an Indian audience. The World Athletics Championships, the Spanish football league, the Ultimate Fighting Championships, the European hockey league, the American NFL are all events that some people in India want to watch, but currently cannot do so. The rest of the world is now watching in HD, but India is watching in 4:3, not even in widescreen.
Free the sports channels from the limitations of Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) pricing, and the doors will open to even better experiences. Control the piracy, encourage innovation. Allow variety of sporting experience, encourage quality of production. Filling each hour of live sport programming with advertising, squeezing back the screen every ball of a cricket match does not deliver the quality of viewing experience that an audience deserves.
Let‘s hope that 2010 allows sports channels the legislative freedoms to offer premium products at premium prices and take Indian sports TV into the 21st century.