SPORTSMINT

The growth and demand of OTT platforms may end up changing the way viewers watch live sports across the globe. For a sports enthusiast, enjoying live sports in the stadium remains an incredible experience, however, during this pandemic times, the preferances may have changed. With the help of the evolving technology, sports was able to reach out to every house across the globe by becoming the…

The growth and demand of OTT platforms may end up changing the way viewers watch live sports across the globe.

For a sports enthusiast, enjoying live sports in the stadium remains an incredible experience, however, during this pandemic times, the preferances may have changed. With the help of the evolving technology, sports was able to reach out to every house across the globe by becoming the go-to device for people to watch from the comfort of their living room, first via radio and then through television.

Previously, these platforms were popular for the old and new material that that besically included short series. However, Facebook acquiring the broadcast rights for La Liga in India and Amazon Prime getting the fixtures in Premier League, indicated that this is just the beginning of something very vast and creative.

The television industry has been holding out to audiences due to sports nevertheless the obscenely prices of monthly packages would certainly put the users down.

This change will also impact the International cricket. Amazon Prime has already secured rights for streaming international games of New Zealand in India from next summer. We can already agree to amount of talent in the Indian domestic circuit, so bringing an OTT platform onboard to stream domestic games could be a possible pathway to get more revenue for BCCI.

Better fan engagement on OTT platforms

The OTT platforms also make viewing far more interactive than television.

Take the case of the Indian Premier League on Hotstar, fans are allowed to win prizes for guessing the outcome of every ball.

These contents keep the fans hooked and attract more viewers to these platforms.

Affordability

The only downside of switching from Television is the affordability of multiple OTT platforms for different sporting events. There are many platforms that have different live sports matches which makes it difficult in terms of subscription packages for the users since their budget maybe limited.

Although the Indian Cricket Team had won nine T-20 International games, Men in Blue still have to do a lot to win next year’s ICC T20 World Cup 2021.

As the Men in Blue clinched the T-20 series against Australia, Indian fans finally breathed a sigh of relief on December 6. In the second game of the series, the Indian team was impressive as they were hunting down a massive score of 194.

Sunday’s victory against Australia indicated that India had secured nine T20 games in the long run.

However, the team still needs to do a lot of work to be able to become the strongest T-20 team in the world and win the World Cup at home in 2021.

India will get a chance to further strengthen the team during the five-match home series against England after the series in Australia.

Here are couple of things that India need to keep in mind before the tournament.

The Indian team should have an aggressive approach to offer no breathing space to the opposition especially when they have a lot of wickets in hand.

Together with an aggressive approach, the selection committee should also assist the team by making bold decisions. The selection committee needs to offer more chances to the likes of Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, and Sanju Samson to have explosive batsmen around Kohli.

ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2021

Although the Indian Cricket Team had won nine T-20 International games, Men in Blue still have to do a lot to win next year’s ICC T20 World Cup 2021. As the Men in Blue clinched the T-20 series against Australia, Indian fans finally breathed a sigh of relief on December 6. In the second game of the series, the Indian team was impressive as they were hunting down a massive score of 194. Sunday’s…

Industrializing Sports in India

India is a land of diverse cultures and communities. It is an amalgamation of distinct customs, religions, languages, cuisines, geography, music and dance. While these distinctions may separate Indians in some ways, what unites us all is sports.

It is what brings us together despite our individual diverse backgrounds. To make a career in sports, one only needs to have innate talent and a…

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has officially confirmed that Pakistan, Australia, Bangladesh and the West Indies will tour during the home season. 

NZC’s chief executive David White confirmed that there is going to be 37 days of International cricket action in New Zealand with the foreign teams officially accepting to visit the home country.

The official details of the tours are yet to be released, but the planning of the isolation arrangements for the visiting teams are being worked out with the officials. 

White said that they’ll be proceeding ahead with the bio-secure ‘bubble’ concept to keep the teams, officials and management safe and secure from the outside world. 

He also added, “We’re working through that with the government agencies at the moment, a similar concept… the agencies have been really supportive, the government’s been fantastic.”

All the international travelers are following a 14 day quarantine rule as per the government norms. 

But the New Zealanders are enjoying the new normal, pre-coronavirus lifestyle with no social distancing and spectators allowed at sports and cultural events. 

New Zealand was one of the first countries to come out of the pandemic and also conducted a Rugby match with full jam packed audience.

The Indian Cricket domestic season which is eagerly awaited by tons of cricketers to showcase their talent and make embark a step ahead to the National team is delayed due to Covid-19. 

The BCCI is contemplating to start off the season by November 19 with Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 being the first one in action.

Only two tournaments will be played — Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 and Ranji Trophy with 245 games across 38 teams in different formats. There will be no Vijay Hazare Trophy, Duleep Trophy or Challenger Series this year and as of now there is no provision for Irani Cup also. 

This is the tentative schedule drafted and sent for approval to Mr. Sourav Ganguly and Mr. Jay Shah, commented one of the senior BCCI officials.

One of the challenges for the players is returning back from IPL and joining their respective state teams for the domestic competition. 

However, a 14-day quarantine is mandatory as per the government norms, it’ll be interesting to know how BCCI comes up with an alternative to reduce this time and without compromising the safety and security guidelines.

With the speculations of Ranji Trophy being shifted to Zone based format, BCCI is not looking to proceed with the same and will continue with the group format only. 

This is because BCCI is considering to conduct the next year IPL in India from early April onwards. So, it becomes essential to nearly have a 3 week gap between the Ranji Trophy and IPL so that the players can join their respective squads and prepare for the league.

However from this year, top two teams from group A, B and C (eight team groups) will qualify for quarter-finals. 

In the first major tournament since the pandemic stalled the sports world, Morikawa delivers magic at PGA Championship and becomes the third youngest to win the title. The sources confirm that he turned pro just last year.

Morikawa joins Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy as the only players to win the PGA Championship since World War Two at the age of 23 or younger. “It’s amazing, it’s been a life goal,” Morikawa said after receiving the trophy. “But to close it out here in San Francisco, pretty much my second home, is pretty special.”

This PGA championship is surely going to be special in many ways, first of the major action to get back to the ground after Covid-19 has postponed all the major leagues and tournaments across the globe.

With no fans around and the quiet course, obviously winning is far more special and it couldn’t have come at a time better than this for the young champ who was playing against the Veteran and senior players like Casey, Johnson, and two times defending champion Brooks Koepka.

The mega auctions, hosted by BCCI on every third year of the league where franchises get a chance to rebuild their teams from scratch has been postponed indefinitely for now, due to the current pandemic situation.

This decision was mutually made by BCCI & the team owners. Since the 2020 season will end on 10th November, they will have only 4.5 months before the next season begins.

For holding a full-fledged auction, BCCI will have to enter into contract with national as well as international players to create a comprehensive auction list, while franchise’s will have to prepare their bidding strategies, which take around 4–6 months to figure out.

According to our sources, BCCI is ready to issue an Expression of Interest (EOI) for the IPL 2020 Title Sponsorships.

“These are bad times, we won’t get more than 180–200Cr for IPL 2020 Title sponsor,” said a BCCI official.

The Indian cricket board is in a hurry to complete this process as soon as possible so that they can focus on other things necessary for the perfect execution of IPL 2020 in UAE.

BCCI is expecting the title sponsorship rights to take a minimum hit of about 50–60% from what Vivo was paying.

For BCCI the main area of debate was whether to keep a base price for the title sponsorship or not. Finally, after thorough deliberation it has been decided not to impose any base price on the EOI and leave it up to the market to decide the price for the IPL title sponsor.

BCCI faces another challenge!

However, in the middle of these hardships, BCCI faces another challenge from the parties who have shown some interest in taking the title sponsorship.

We have learnt that, whoever BCCI has reached out to, wants BCCI to extend the sponsorship window to 2–3 years.

On being questioned about this a BCCI official said, “It won’t be possible. We still have existing contract with VIVO. The contract has just been paused for a year. If situation will permit the contract will come alive for the next edition of the IPL. We can’t permit more than 1 year of rights”.

IPL 2020 Title Sponsorship Bid

Patanjali, India’s homegrown FMCG brand has announced their interest in the IPL title sponsorship.

SK Tijarawala a spokesperson from Patanjali said, “We are considering IPL title sponsorship this year, since we want to give the Patanjali brand a global marketing platform.”

Who would have thought Patanjali could have been interested in the bid for IPL 2020’s naming rights?

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics have signed Sankeshu Paint as official exclusive paint supplier for the Games.

Beijing has a four-tier sponsorship programme. The first is official partner category, followed by official sponsor category, then official exclusive supplier category and the fourth one is official supplier tier.

As per the sources, the local organizing committee has signed 33 sponsors till date across the four-tier sponsorship programme. These include 10 official partners, 10 official sponsors, 7 exclusive suppliers and 6 official suppliers.

With the deferment of Olympics to 2021, it is believed that it would surely benefit the 2021 Winter Games in China and would be in the interest of everyone, including the organizations, sponsors, partners and broadcasters.

Cricket Australia (CA) has rejected a $10 million per year sponsorship from McDonald’s.

According to reports from the Sydney Morning Herald, McDonald’s attempted to take the Big Bash League’s title sponsorship from its competitor and long-term sponsor, KFC.

This decision means that KFC will be extending its existing agreement with CA, in a deal worth $8 million a year.

Earlier KFC was paying $6.5 million a year for the title sponsorship; however, according to the sources, the deal is now being renewed for $8 million a year. McDonald was ready to pay $10 million per year for the title sponsorship of BIG BASH as a counter offer, but CA decided to still continue with KFC.

A CA spokesperson told “KFC is a longstanding partner of ours and loyalty is important to us during times like this.”

KFC has been sponsoring the Big Bash since it started and has been sponsoring CA’s Twenty20 tournaments for the last 15years.

Innovative Production Group (IPG), a Dubai based sports broadcasting company has purchased the total rights for the Lankan Premier League, at USD 2Mn annually, for 5 years.

As per the contract IPG will own the TV, production, ground & franchise rights of the tournament, while the umpires and venues will be handled by the SLC.

The tentative date for the tournament to start is 28th August. It will feature 23 games, which will be played between 5 teams (Colombo, Galle, Jaffna, Dambulla and Kandy) across 4 venues (R. Premadasa Stadium, Sooriyawewa, Pallekele, and Dambulla.).

Interestingly, none of the teams will have a home ground as per the city name after which the teams are named. The tournament will shift from one city to another as it progresses, just like Pro Kabbadi League.

Franchises will be able to select players from a pool of 130 local players. Other than this, a total of 30 international players and 5 coaches will be selected to participate in the tournament.

According to media report, English & wales Cricket Board held a meeting with 18- counties board, where it informed them that it is expecting a minimum deficit of 106 million pounds in the current financial year, due to the pandemic.

Commercial revenues and loss of income from participations programs such as All Stars Cricket and Dynamos Cricket tops the list for the income deficit. This deficit has also forced to postpone “The Hundred” by a year, which was about to take place last month.

The cost of holding these matches has increased, as the board suffer from loss of ticket sales, creating a bio-secure bubble for the visiting team, bringing the touring teams on private flights in order to maintain secure environment- said one of the officials.

This deficit could further rise to 182 million pounds if any of the matches gets cancelled or the ECB fails to sell tickets for any of the tours which are schedule to be held next year against India, Pakistan & Sri Lanka- as per the reports of one of our officials.

As the pandemic has hit the revenues of all sporting events around the world, the recently crowned champions of the FA cup Arsenal are also feeling the heat of losses due to this pandemic.

The club has declared that the drop in revenues is far greater than what they have expected it to be. The reasons for this being, fans not allowed inside the stadium in start of the 2020-21 season, while limited numbers were allowed in the later stages.

Moreover, the revenue from broadcasters & other commercial activities had all fallen down, forcing Arsenal, to reduce the salary of their head coach in the month of April. Currently they are planning to lay-off 55 staff members.

They have witnessed a significant dip in their revenues for a longer duration. However, investments from the club owner & acceptance of players and associates wage cuts has helped them in reducing the potential damage to the club.

Majority of the sacking were taking place in administration and commercial departments. However, their transfer plans were still unaffected & that the investments will be continued in arsenal playing staff- suggests one of our sources.

Six franchises of the Pakistan Super League(PSL) have requested the Pakistan Cricket Board(PCB) to make changes to the business and ownership model of the league as they are incurring losses but PCB is benefitting out of the league.

PCB has excluded three franchises — Multan, Karachi and Lahore for failing to meet the financial obligations and hence the remaining six franchises in a joint letter to the PCB have requested for a change in the business model of the league.

The 5th Edition of the PSL which was postponed after the league matches only due to the Covid-19, reports confirm that each of the franchise is expecting a payment of around 20 to 22 crores as a part of their share from the earnings. In return the franchises claim that they are spending far more from what they’re actually earning.

Earlier PCB made it very clear that only six franchises who’ve met the financial obligations will be called for the meeting with the board. The franchises have demanded that only the PCB Chairman or the CEO Wasim Khan should address future meetings between the franchises and the board.

The franchises have also claimed that the response of PCB to their mails and letter is very unprofessional.

National Basketball Association(NBA) team owners have decided to donate $300m cumulatively over the next 10 years towards the Black community, aimed at improving the economic conditions and accelerating the growth of the community and its members.

The league’s board of governors and players have launched the ‘NBA Foundation’, towards which each of the 30 teams will donate $1m annually.

“The creation of this foundation is an important step in developing more opportunities for the Black community,” said National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) President Chris Paul.

The foundation aims at improving the economic growth amongst the community and its members and also at the same time empower them, such as, creating career opportunities for them and ensuring that there is no biasing on the basis of facial color in the coming future faced by the Black community from the society.

It will also work increasing access and support for high school, college-age and career-ready Black men and women.

The ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement gathered a lot of momentum after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed in police custody in May.

Anti-racism protests have been at the forefront of the NBA’s restart with games being played on courts that have “Black Lives Matter” painted on them and players wearing jerseys with social-justice messages.