English Football And Indian Audience

English Football And Indian Audience

Barclay's premier league (as its famously known) is the top division of  football league of England (and Wales) and is payed between top 20 clubs. although the league is going on since 1888, but it became premiership tournament in 1992. Football in India has been in pathetic state right from the start and is pathetic even now.( although INDIA did play in  asia cup last year in Qatar.) but still nothing has improved.In januray,I went to see the match between INDIA n Bayern Munich( yes, the same team who is playing champions league final on may 19) and the match more looked like a sponsorship commitment on the part of German club for AUDI. India was defeated 4-0.Sadly, there is not much to talk about Indian football.

English football is being telecast in india live through ESPN STAR SPORTS for last so many years. football  viewing became popular in india only after 2002 world cup, when the football was telecast live by then new channel TEN sports. many adults,kids n teenagers( including me) who earlier had not seen much of professional football started watching football.I still remember FRANCE the defending champion had lost out in first round.
So, that's how football viewing became popular in india. BPL slowly became popular n 90% of Indians  who used to watch football( at that time)  became fans of Manchester UNITED( may be coz they were winning and they also had David Beckham the most popular english player at that time), n sum others( including me) became fans of 2 other famous clubs ( arsenal n Liverpool). Then subsequently, with euro championships n world cups, football became more popular  in India.  as of now in  2012,football( particularly) BPL has become very common among teenagers n adults. and it has become a big market in india.

Manchester united has been the most aggressive of them  to cash in on this big market. They opened cafe bars n restaurants in india through a franchisee mode with an indian company (link ) and other clubs are following too. all the big sponsors(kit suppliers) of these clubs are selling jerseys of these foreign clubs in india n many big brands( like pepsi) are getting associated with football. pepsi even launched a campaign "change the game" to support football, although they later re-framed it again in favour of cricket. The end of last Season was great with MANU failing to win n MANC winning it in extra time. the success of other clubs in BPL will make them follow MANU n many more will come in india to fulfill their commercial interest.

IPL- black money n spot-fixing.

This Blog is about the latest controversy involving Fringe IPL players, being lured by Franchisees for more money ( read black money) n also spot fixing being present in domestic cricket. Cricket is a game which is always in news. Any game involving money will always be in news. TP  sudhindra was caught on camera trying to fix a no ball in one of the domestic T20 mtaches n salabh shrivastav  was talking on phone to fix a no-ball in an IPL game for Rs 10 lacs..( wow!! 10 lacs  for just bowling a no ball in a match). spot fixing will always be there and its very difficult to stop.Player caught in spot-fixing should be banned.

Coming to black money, many domestic players seems to be receiving it. It may sound strange but a concept of black money is not new. Its an open secret that all the property transactions in delhi ( or in fact all over india) are done with more than half the black money. India TV which carried out sting operation, they themselves must have bought their office and studio by paying more then half in black. If indian domestic players are receiving it , then there is nothin wrong in it. These players deserve money as much as foreign players. Many players( like shikhar dhawan, saurabh tiwari, Venugopal rao) are receiving money in crores just because they have played 2 or 3 ODI matches n other domestic players are receiving only 30  lacs, just because they did not play international cricket.. how fair is that?

IPL auction in JAN,2011 -->    http://www.espncricinfo.com/indian-premier-league-2011/content/story/495820.html

however, there is a little danger with this concept of black money as big teams like mumbai, pune will end up buying all domestic players  by giving huge sum of money IN black and other teams will be left with nothing. But ipl 4 had some new rules of retaining  players. Chennai superkings , delhi daredevils and mumbai Indians retained MS Dhoni, sehwag  and Sachin tendulkar respectively  by paying them 8 crores,  and chennai also retained raina by paying him 6 crores( the amount was settled by mutual consent of both franchisee n player). Now this is unbelievable, some one like gambhir was sold for Rs 11 crores in IPL auction, gambhir got this much money then why some one like dhoni, sachin n sehwag would agree with Rs 8 crores??? one can easily guess that they may have received good amount of money in black too by franchisees.
 

IPL( from the start) made a good choice by putting a cap on total spending by each team  on players annually, unlike EPL( english football) where sheikhs of Manchester City have spent millions of dollars on buying top players and any team in EPL can spend  any amount of money and there is no stopping.  In IPL the cap on  total money spent is good but the cap on domestic players is stupid and unjustified. rather then having a cap on maximum amount there should be a limit on minimum amount a team should pay to a domestic player( eg an amount of 30 lacs should be given minimum to a domestic player who has played for 5 seasons) and all these players should come up in auction. This way all the money being spent will be out in open and domestic players will also get the amount they deserve and one more thing if any such player is then caught then not just a player but a franchisee should also be punished as the franchisee is making an offer, not a player.

IPL- 5 years of entertainment..

I would like to start my blog with my greatest passion --CRICKET.. n nothing at present is bigger in cricket den IPL... IPL known as INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE is a BPL (English football) of cricket, with largest fan following all over d world( in comparison to other T20  leagues,thanks to indians living all over d world.) IPL which was started just to stop ICL has become much larger den just a T20 league.  money being poured in from all over the country n corporates, film stars all queuing up to buy a stake in every team.  team auction which went in 2008. mumbai was sold highest at around 111 million USD,with rajasthan being sold for 67 Million USD. Nobody had guessed that rajasthan which was thought to be the weakest team will win,so IPL from the start went on to be super-hit. n just before IPL 3 season 2 more teams were sold for 320 million n 370 Million. now dat was a huge amount n suddenly BCCI became richer by 3400 crores( although money was to be paid  in a period of 10 years n Kochi team was terminated last year due to non-payment of installments) but this thing certainly increased market value of all the teams.

then came IPL 4 , with two new teams added,players were put on auction again,many gud players were Retained by their teams. n gautam gambhir was picked for 2.4 million USD by kkr, the highest any player  is getting as of now in IPL. what was more surprising was dat team India rejects rohit Sharma,robin uthhapa ,yusuf pathan,irfan pathan were sold for 2 Million usd (if this is the amount u r gettin for playin IPL) why would one like to play for Team INDIA??

N now we r in business end of IPL. all matches going on till final over?  but Trp ratings are going down. why??   all stadia are getting good attendance, matches being interesting ( atleast much better den stupid bollywood movies n Daily soaps). why people are not watching it on TV?? many advertisers are now losing interest on IPL. what could be the reason??

1. The first and the biggest reason i can think of is too many matches in too less time. seriously dere are far too many matches for everybody's liking. Like football leagues, there should be matches only on SAT/SUN. less matches  would keep viewers interestin and also good TRP ratings. if they have to reduce matches (as IPL has only  2 Months window) then they should, otherwise overdose of  matches will kill IPL brand.

2. I think broadcasters should stop calling IPL as  combination of cricket+bollywood. Bollywwod  poeple don't know even ABC of cricket n when dey start commenting( or rather i should say start giving expert comments it looks very funny..



The money being poured in IPL is huge and it deserves it, India being a big market for cricket, its players should get good money . even though the money which Indian players are earning is only 10%-15%
 of what footballers all over the world are earning. IPL will make Indian fringe players more competitive as  for 2 months they will share dressing rooms with the biggest players of international cricket, getting tips from the best coaching staff, so it is good for Indian cricket.

Thanks,
KARAN DHINGRA,
PGDM-MARKETING 
JIMS,rohini, DELHI

 next blog-->  IPL  recent controversy black money n match fixing...