Cricket being the most loved and influential game amongst the audience, major viewership contributors are from India, Australia, and England (the Big 3 of Cricket). As viewers, online and offline, we contribute humongously to the board. Let’s dig right into the facts and figures of ICC’s revenue model to understand the structure and see where you fall in the picture.
Major revenue streams are through the global tournaments they organize and long-term commercial partnerships. It gives brands a huge platform to engage with their audience/fans with innovative marketing campaigns, enhance brand awareness, increase sales and brand affinity opportunities.
It is very evident that Cricket along with being a gentleman’s game is also an emotion. Due to the popularity of cricket in every household, brands seek a chance to show up and engage with you. Do you see ads during a match? Brands pay huge figures to the board so you could see them on your screen.
ICC’s current partners (until the end of 2023):
Global Partners — Nissan, Oppo, Booking.com, Byju’s, Emirates, MRF Tyres.
Official Partners — Bira91, Coca-Cola, Upstox, MoneyGram, PostPe, etc.
The aforementioned brands have successfully partnered with ICC to promote and engage across broadcast and digital channels, in-venue activations at all ICC events through their range of impeccable products.
There are more streams, Kit-sponsors, Instadia Ads, Jersey sponsors, Ticket Sales, TV Screens, Live Coverage, Travel, and Hospitality, etc.
Broadcast Partners
The groundbreaking deal is the Global broadcast rights to Star Sports to channel all the ICC Events 2015–2023 in 6 different languages. This includes all the exclusive live events and highlights of the ICC Cricket World Cup, ICC Women’s World Cup, ICC World T20, ICC Champions Trophy, and ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup.
Star targets a digital viewership of more than 1.5 billion people, and you fall right here!
IPL (Indian Premier League), out of all other tournaments generates record-breaking viewership count and revenue every year. IPL is backed by a huge fanbase where teams represent Indian cities playing against each other.
Star Sports had sold 45% of their ad stock when the events were 2.5 months away!
To book a slot of 10 seconds on the screen sponsors were requested around Rs 10.95–11.15 lakh. Brands jump into the bandwagon to engage with you so you don’t switch channels! The audience engages, enquires and a huge conversion is witnessed wrt the brands during the season of IPL.
Disney+Hotstar witnessed a sudden surge in app downloads and subscriptions with a concurrent viewership of over 1.2Cr screens.
While records were broken during IPL 2019, IPL 2021 has clocked 255.4 billion minutes of watch time till 45 matches. IPL 2019 had streaks like never before, where 18 million viewers were watching digital platforms, creating a strong viewership base from the age group of 15–25 youngsters.
Going forward, two new franchises will participate in IPL from 2022, which will be 10 teams and 74 matches, where BCCI is expected to see huge growth due to the addition of franchises. Board welcomes Lucknow and Ahmedabad to join the Indian Premier League. The new Lucknow IPL team is bought by RPSG Group for Rs 7,090 Cr. The Ahmedabad team is bought by CVC Capital Partners for Rs. 5,625 Cr.
Now that you know the placement of brands in and around the stadium and the ultimate motto of brand sponsorships on digital platforms, would this article pop up in your head? Next time when an advertisement pops up in between a match, would you acknowledge your watch time? Each and every second you spend is counted back there!
Do you want us to dissect more such interesting topics for you? Let us know.
We, at www.getoapp.com, are associated with top-notch finance experts who have been in the finance market for more than 15 years. We are a vernacular-based personal finance education platform for first-time investors.
Start early with GETO!
Come say hello in your own language, we are always at connect@getoapp.com
