Cricket might already be immensely popular in India but this time around, the general interest is even higher than normal — and so are the ad rates, according to industry sources.
Reuters
Fans of India pose in T-shirts with the faces of Indian players before the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 semifinal match between India and Pakistan in Mohali March 30, 2011.
The governments of the two nuclear rivals have even used the occasion to rekindle peace talks for the first time since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. It’s only the fifth World Cup meeting between the two since the International Cricket Council launched it in 1972, the last time being in 2007.
“There’s always an increase during the cricket season, even more so for the World Cup,” says Amit Ahire, a media-and-entertainment analyst with Alchemy Share & Stock Brokers. “But this time, with India moving to the semifinal and playing Pakistan, there’s been an even sharper increase in rates for ads for Wednesday’s game.”
ESPN Star Sports, which bought the official broadcasting rights from ICC for close to $2 billion, has hiked its rates for 10-second ads in Wednesday’s game more than fivefold to between 1.8 million rupees and 2 million rupees ($40,000 to $45,000), according to ad-industry sources.
“It’s the highest it’s ever been in my career,” said Jai Lala, principal partner, at Mindshare Advertising, who’s been in the Indian ad business for 15 years.
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Japan's national soccer team faced off against current and former stars of the country's professional soccer league in a charity match. It was the first event to capture national interest since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. ESPN Star Sports is a joint venture of Walt Disney Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!dis/quotes/nls/dis (DIS 43.09, -0.26, -0.60%) unit ESPN and News Corp.’s /quotes/comstock/15*!nws/quotes/nls/nws (NWS 18.62, +0.06, +0.32%) Star TV, which broadcasts throughout Asia.
ESPN Star Sports owns rights to broadcast in about 220 countries.
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The official sponsors of the World Cup that have already paid top dollars for their sponsorship are likely to be fairly happy about the turn of events in the tournament.
They include India’s Reliance Communications /quotes/comstock/29m!e:herohonda.eq (IN:500182 1,598, +11.45, +0.72%) and Hero Honda Motors Ltd. /quotes/comstock/29m!e:herohonda.eq (IN:500182 1,598, +11.45, +0.72%) , as well as PepsiCo Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!pep/quotes/nls/pep (PEP 64.41, -0.64, -0.98%) and Yahoo Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!yhoo/quotes/nls/yhoo (YHOO 16.68, -0.06, -0.36%)
They also include mobile companies such as the U.K.’s Vodafone Group PLC /quotes/comstock/15*!vod/quotes/nls/vod (VOD 28.75, -0.45, -1.54%) /quotes/comstock/23s!a:vod (UK:VOD 177.10, +0.55, +0.31%) , which is trying to make a big push in the Indian market.
Television-audience ratings suggest viewership will be much higher than in any of the games in the tournament so far, with all the games where India played seeing higher interest than others, according to Indian TV-rating firm TAM.
In India, cricket already leads television ratings hands down and it has been on the rise for a number of years. In 2010, there were about 176 million viewers, triple the 57 million of 2003.
