I’M writing from Phuket, Thailand this week where every year I help out with the annual international triathlon, the biggest race in asia. It’s a remarkable event, in and around the Laguna Phuket resort, which draws thousands of competitors from all over the world for not just the main race but also fun runs and kids races.
The first such Indian race is now scheduled for Goa on Valentines Day, next year, and it’s excellent to see a high profile event set to lift the sport in India. The organisers, Grey Matter Entertainment, are now in the process of adding to the list of sponsors and I wish them well.
In the last decade in India, it’s been tough to find sponsors for non cricket events, but maybe now there is an awareness that actually “owning” a sports event away from cricket through a long term sponsorship can bring you a better brand fit in the longer term.
A suitable success story would be the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, which is now firmly established as one of the landmarks of the Indian sporting year. For a sponsor, it’s an excellent way of positively touching hundreds of thousands of people and the recognition of the brand rises every year. It’s also an event that the sponsor can spend around, activating the sponsorship with activities that engage directly with his consumers and potential consumers, safe in the knowledge that the sponsorship will still be there in the years to come.
Compare this to the challenges for the BCCI as they seek the continuing escalation of their sponsorship rates. amidst the clutter of cricketing events.
One of the knock-on effects of the windows (or effective windows) for the ICC, Champions League or IPL events is that the rest of cricket is squeezed into around 9 months of the year.
The past week has been an excellent example of the result in terms of cricket viewership. International cricket fans have had the choice between New Zealand and Pakistan (Ten Sports), Australia and West Indies (Star Cricket), India and Sri Lanka (Neo Cricket) and South Africa v England (Ten again). All the top 8 cricket nations in action live from first thing in the morning until last thing at night.
As well as creating a flight of money towards only the most attractive cricket events, one of the other side effects of the cricket congestion has been the effect on the associate nations.
I visited the Malaysian cricket headquarters last week, where the new floodlit ground is all geared up to stage international games but is finding it increasingly difficult to persuade teams and sponsors to come. It’s a similar story in the U.S.A and Singapore. The facilities have been built to capitalise on international cricket, but there’s a lack of headline events for now and it’s difficult to see how they can materialise.
Let’s hope that those cricket venues can find supportive sponsors with the vision to see long term growth in the sport.
The author is COO, Taj Television Ltd.
