MUMBAI: After its initial season, the Wave World Kabaddi League (WKL) attracted an aggregate reach of just over 101 million individuals as per TAM India in its very first edition placing it among the top five sporting properties in India, claim the organisers.
This is both in terms of viewers as well as visibility to sponsoring brands. The league, which was telecast live on Sony Six, also garnered 1.5 million views on YouTube with 60 per cent of the views coming in from the diaspora in United States, Canada, UK and as far as Italy. Additionally an estimated 50 million reach was acquired through international feed in Pakistan, Middle East, Europe, US and Canada.
WKL CEO Raman Raheja said, “We are overjoyed with the response to the WKL in its very first year. The idea of keeping the latter and final parts of the WKL in India, where the sport is extremely popular, also paid rich dividends in terms of TV exposure for the sponsors. We are now looking to a bigger event in the second edition.”
Repucom, a research company that measures ROI for all sports across the world, gave an interesting comparison of WKL’s sponsored property exposure on TV as compared to other sports. Repucom India analyzed that the 86 matches played during the first season garnered as many as 143 hours of screen exposure, which translated into an hour and 40 minutes of exposure per match.
The event as a whole received media value worth Rs 301,02,60,323 for 86 matches with an average worth of Rs 3,50,03,027 per match. Wave Infratech’s media value was put at Rs 135,90,62,603 for all the matches at an average Rs 1,58,03,054 per match.
Title sponsors, Wave Infratech, earned maximum visibility and ROI with 45 per cent of share compared to all the other sponsors exhibited during the event. Among other main properties, the static board earned 37 hours on screen exposure (18 per cent share compared to other sponsors) and the Jersey front was the second leading property with 22 hours on screen exposure (19 per cent share compared to other sponsors).
Repucom South Asia/India director and senior vice president- Joseph Eapen said, “We recommend that teams acquire more sponsors on the team apparels like jersey front, jersey back, jersey side, chest logo and trousers to cash the exposures and value from apparels.”
