Indiantelevision.com Team

(10 July 2006 6:00 am)

MUMBAI: The curtain has come down in Munich, Germany, on the greatest sporting spectacle on the planet. For Sony Entertainment Television India, the effort is already under way to shift the attention of the people who matter in media to something Indians have a more direct stake in --- cricket.

Looking ahead to the Champions Trophy in September (which India is hosting) and the World Cup in March 2007 in the West Indies, SET India has come out with the price lists for presenting and associate sponsors for the stellar events on the global cricketing calendar.

According to reliable industry sources, Sony is looking to tie up two presenting sponsors and six associate sponsors for the two tournaments that involve a total of 72 One Day International matches (51 for World Cup, 21 for Champions). The prices that are being quoted for presenting sponsor are Rs 375 million while the associate sponsor package is going for Rs 320 million. When contacted for his comments, SET executive vice president (ad sales & revenue management) Rohit Gupta, while refusing to commit on specific figures, would only say that the rates mentioned "were on the lower side".

Gupta said that he expected about 70 per cent of his total inventory to be consumed by the presenting and associate sponsors. Extrapolating on the figures quoted, Sony looks to be targeting a revenue mop-up of around Rs 3.8 billion from these two tournaments. That is over Rs 1 billion higher than what industry sources say Sony earned from the last edition of the events in 2002-2003. Sony had then pulled in somewhere in the region of Rs 2.7 billion, the sources say.

Most media honchos Indiantelevision.com spoke to about the sponsorship packages said Sony was being overly optimistic in its revenue expectations, a point that Gupta was quick to dispute. Gupta sought to point out that his network always worked on realistic expectations as the experience of the last World Cup and more recently Indian Idol had shown.

Gupta said that his team had already initiated discussions with ICC's global partners for these tournaments --- LG Electronics (consumer durables), Hero Honda, Pepsi, Hutch and Indian Oil --- in this regard. The other sectors that would definitely be looking to spend on cricket were finance, FMCG, mobile handset companies, paints, automobiles and retail, he added.

Justifying the reasons for his optimism on revenue expectations Gupta pointed to some key factors:

* The television viewing universe will have doubled from 35 million in the 2003 World Cup to 70 million by the time the March 2007 edition kicks off in the Caribbean. That would mean a potential viewership of 350 million. 89 per cent reach levels were achieved last time round. The same expected for this edition as well.

*70 days of prime time viewing.

*An opportunity window that comes only once every four years. Brands are born out of the World Cup, Gupta avers, giving the example of Reliance mobile.

Gupta concluded by drawing attention to the kind of bid prices that were being quoted for cricket properties nowadays, with Nimbus $ 612 million bet on India cricket being the most notable one. This would be the last major cricketing event where ad rates would be linked to earlier bid prices. Going forward, cricket rates would have to ramp up significantly if there were to be any returns on the investments that are now going into cricket rights, he argues.