Introduction to IPL

The Indian Premier League often abbreviated as IPL, is a domestic professional Twenty20 cricket competition in India. It was initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India BCCI headquartered in Mumbai and supervised by BCCI Vice President Chirayu Amin, chairman & commissioner for IPL, and CEO Sundar Raman. It presently includes 10 teams’ franchises consisting of players from different countries. It was started after an altercation between the BCCI and the Indian Cricket League

In 2010, IPL became the first sporting event ever to be broadcast live on the popular video sharing website YouTube.Its brand value was estimated to be around $4.13 billion over 18,000 crore US$ 4.09 billion the same year. According to global sports salaries review, IPL is the second highest-paid league, based on first-team salaries on a pro rata basis, second only to the NBA. It is estimated that the average salary of an IPL player over a year would be £2.5 million.

Seasons

It was undertaken by BCCI which has headquartered in Mumbai.IPL Indian premier league has 4 seasons

First season

Second season

Third season

Fourth season

Introduction to all four seasons

First season

A Chennai vs. Kolkata match in progress at the M.A. Chidambaram Cricket Stadium

The inaugural season of the tournament started on 18 April 2008 and lasted for 46 days with 59 matches scheduled, out of which 58 took place and 1 was washed out due to rain. The final was played in DY Patil Stadium, Nerul, Navi Mumbai. Every team played each other both at home and away in a round robin system. The top four ranking sides progressed to the knockout stage of semi-finals followed by a final. Rajasthan Royals defeated Chennai Super Kings in a last ball thriller and emerged as the inaugural IPL champions.

Second season

The 2009 season coincided with the general elections in India. Owing to concerns regarding players' security, the venue was shifted to South Africa. The format of the tournament remained same as the inaugural one. Deccan Chargers, who finished last in the first season, came out as eventual winners defeating the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final.

Third season

The third season opened in January 2010 with the auction for players. 66 players were on offer but only 11 players were sold. In this season, Deccan Chargers did not play at their preferred home location of Hyderabad, India due to the ongoing political crisis in the Telangana region.

The new bases for the champions this season were Nagpur, Navi Mumbai and Cuttack. Four teams qualified for the semi-finals. The first semi-final was won by Mumbai Indians who defeated Bangalore Royal Challengers by 35 runs. Chennai Super Kings defeated Deccan Chargers in the second semi-final. The final was played between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians. Chennai Super Kings won by a margin of 22 runs

Fourth season

On 21 March 2010, it was announced at Chennai that 2 new teams from Pune and Kochi will be added to the IPL for the coming season. However, the bid around the Kochi franchisee turned controversial resulting in the resignation of minister, Shashi Tharoor from the Central Government and investigations by various departments of the Government of India into the financial dealings of IPL

and the other existing franchisees. Later, Lalit Modi was also removed from IPL chairmanship by BCCI.

In October 2010, the Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab had their franchises terminated for breaching ownership rules. The new Kochi franchise was also issued a warning to resolve all their ownership disputes.

The addition of teams representing Pune and Kochi was to have increased the number of franchises from 8 to 10. The BCCI originally considered extending the tournament format used in previous season to ten teams, which would increase the number of matches from 60 to 94. Instead, the round-robin stage of the tournament was to have been replaced by a group stage with two groups of five, limiting the number of matches to 74. However, with the expulsion of the Rajasthan royals and Kings XI Punjab teams, the format of the fourth season of the IPL remains in flux.

Franchise names

Mumbai IndiansRoyal Challengers BangaloreDeccan ChargersChennai Super KingsDelhi DaredevilsKings XI PunjabKolkata Knight RidersRajasthan RoyalsPune WarriorsKochi

Logo

Sponsorships

India's biggest property developer DLF Group paid US$50 million to be the title sponsor of the tournament for 5 years from 2008 to 2013.

Other five-year sponsorship agreements include a deal with motorcycle maker Hero Honda worth $22.5-million, one with PepsiCo worth $12.5-million, and a deal with beer and airline conglomerate Kingfisher at $26.5-million.

Promotion

What is promotion?

Promotion is one of the four elements of marketing mix product, price, promotion, distribution. It is the communication link between sellers and buyers for the purpose of influencing, informing, or persuading a potential buyer's purchasing decision.

Promotion of IPL

The IPL Global Promotion Committee was established to implement the International Programmed on

Landslides (IPL) as a global cooperation programmed to mitigate landslide risk by the 2006 Tokyo

Action Plan “Strengthening Research and Learning on Landslides and Related Earth System Disasters

For Global Risk Preparedness It consists of ICL member organizations and ICL supporting

Organizations with IPL World Centre as its secretariat

It is great news for BCCI and the IPL. The Indian cricket team now has 2 extra days to promote IPL after India ended the second test match in record time. Who cares if India won or lost? After all, the multi million dollar IPL league is about to start and every one, BCCI, the IPL and the Indian cricketers need to prepare for the mega tournament.

BCCI bent its own rules when it allowed the Indian cricketers promote the IPL. The IPL is not international cricket and according to BCCI officially international cricket comes first. But still our cricketers ICON PLAYERS were busy launching apparels, slogans, and brand ambassadors for their local teams.

South African players are also playing the IPL but they were busy practicing. And maybe this is why after being under pressure from the Indians in the first test match, the South African came back and crashed the Indians in all departments of the game and ended the match imposing a humiliating innings and 90 runs on India’s home ground.

Korbo Lorbo and Morbo, well that seems to be one IPL teams slogan but the Indian cricketers are doing the first two for IPL promotions, (performing and fighting) and leaving the third for international cricket dying. We doubt BCCI and the IPL cares, as long as IPL is on track and the test match performance does not affect IPL ticket sales.

Schedule of IPL

Sponsors

F IPL 2010 – Official Partners and Sponsors list keeps growing

IPL month has just started with a bang. Television viewers across India are glued to Sony’s SET MAX channel. Other News and Media houses are busy in

covering anything about IPL matches to sustain their TRP ratings. Whereas, IPL committee is busy in finalizing the partners and sponsors for its 3rd season.

I have been hearing news about new IPL partners throughout the past few weeks. Lalit Modi is proving to be a creative business man by monetizing all forms IPL. Be it any media – Print / Digital / Online / Merchandise / Mobile / Radio, IPL has partners to list out. Lets have a look at the Official partners of DLF IPL 2010.

Worldwide Online and Mobile broadcast partner – Global Cricket Ventures

Official Television and Online broadcast rights holder for North America: under Willow TV subsidy

Worldwide online video partner – Google

Except USA, youtube.com streams all IPL matches videos online for free

For USA, you know how to stream Live IPL matches it online

Worldwide Mobile Live streaming partner – Apalya Technologies Pvt Ltd

Operates mimobi.tv and streams all IPL matches on mobile under sub-license from GCV which is the exclusive mobile partner of IPL.

Worldwide SMS, MMS and IVR partner – VRockMobile

The company doesn’t seem to have a website. A stealth startup? However, this guy holds rights to utilize CDMA, GSM, GPRS, MMS, WAP, EDGE, 3G and any other mobile technology, capable of sending or receiving SMS/MMS alerts, SMS/MMS contest/ activations and live audio commentary / IVR platform.

Mobile Application Provider for IPL – Sigma Ventures and Dot Com Info way

Rights to build and monetize Mobile apps for iPhone, Android and other Smart Phones and which can contain all IPL match related data and video highlights

Of course, NO live streaming apps as the rights is held by Google

Iplt20.com’s Mobile services – July Systems

Partner for IPL’s mobile internet service

Users can access this service from their mobile phone by calling the Mix toll-free number 08 123 123 123 or by accessing m.iplt20.com.

Again, this has to be on sub-license from GCV.

But, excluding Smart Phone mobile applications, as the rights is held by Sigma Ventures.

Worldwide Online and mobile game partner – India Games

To include animated, trivia and skill based games.

Excluded are games relating to actual IPL match-play, scores or happenings. May be a new partner for this …

Non-exclusive rights to IPL images and ring tones

IVVR partner for the Gulf region – GoBindaas

Of course, NO Smart Phone Applications as the rights are held by Sigma.

Online partner for IPL Merchandise Store – Infibeam.com

IPL store at Infibeam.com will cater to the demands of cricket aficionados with a wide range of products branded with their favorite team.

To start with they have products like Jersey, Backpacks, Bags, Caps, mugs, key chains

And, this is not all. Lalit Modi seems to be working on finishing up partnership deals with few others also on various other verticals. Let’s hope it’s not again on mobile space. And, I will cover the full sponsors list for DLF IPL 2010 sometime later.