Published: Dec 28, 2013, 10:28 PM (IST)
Edited: Dec 28, 2013, 10:28 PM (IST)
Dec 28, 2013
Indian premier political party Congress could be one of the official sponsors of the Indian Premier League (IPL).Their foray into the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)-organised mega event will clash with the upcoming general elections in April-May 2014.
According to Live Mint, signing on a political party as a sponsor would require a change in the IPL’s sponsorship guidelines, and even then, the Election Commission may have its own views on such an association.
Rajeev Shukla, the minister of state for parliamentary affairs and planning and a former IPL chairman, said political advertising flouts the sponsorship guidelines of the T20 league.
“IPL cannot have political advertising and Congress is not looking at such a tie-up,” he said. .
The timing too doesn’t work out, said a media-buying executive who asked not to be identified. The IPL cannot begin before April 6, when the ICC World T20 2014 in Bangladesh ends.
“The T20 World Cup is a more practical bet for Congress because it’s going to take place in March as opposed to the IPL, which will happen in April and May,” this person added.
The math isn’t quite adding up as far as India’s oldest political outfit venturing into cricket. The move could well be an indication that the fortunes of the Congress is hanging by a thread given their humiliating defeats in the recent elections.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of a leading media-buying agency said the Congress is in talks with the IPL’s broadcaster. “Given the status of cricket —it’s almost a religion in India and reaches across demographies — IPL makes sense even for a political party,” he said.
The inaugural season of IPL in 2008 clocked a rating of 4.81, which has since declined. However, the total viewership of the IPL has doubled in the last six years as the number of households with television sets in the country increased.
“Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd (MSM) is in preliminary talks with political parties keen on sponsoring the IPL,” said a person close to the development at the media company who asked not to be identified.
MSM operates a bouquet of entertainment channels in India including MAX that broadcasts the IPL matches. The company holds the exclusive telecast rights for the IPL up until 2017.
“Although political parties are not permitted to sponsor the IPL, the league is open to discussions and may consider changing the guidelines if such a proposal comes its way, said a member of the governing council of the IPL”, he added.
Interestingly, this is not the first time the Congress has tried to leverage the popular cricket league. In 2009, during the second season of the IPL, the party considered sponsoring the T20 tournament. “We were very close to signing up Congress last time,” said the person close to the development at MSM quoted above.
But the deal did not go through as the IPL’s top brass refused to accept political advertising. A Congress party member, who did not want to be named, confirmed that the party was interested in sponsoring the IPL in 2009.
That year the tournament was shifted outside India (to South Africa) because of the general election and was held between April 18 and May 24 after the government said it couldn’t provide the required security for the event.
Typically, associate sponsorship of the IPL costs Rs 28-35 crore. The associate sponsors get on-ground presence through banners, hoardings, tickets and other signage.
The seventh edition of the tournament is bankrolled by three associate sponsors — Vodafone India Ltd, Star India Pvt. Ltd and Yes Bank Ltd. There is room for one more sponsor, confirmed a BCCI official.
Earlier, the tournament was sponsored by companies such as Citibank NA, Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, Hero MotoCorp Ltd and Karbonn Mobile India Pvt. Ltd.
However, critics argue that given the controversies around the IPL right from former commissioner Lalit Modi’s ouster to last year’s spot-fixing scandal involving three players of the Rajasthan Royals franchise, the Congress may not stand to benefit much from the property.
A Congress minister said: “What sense does it make from a political communication point of view? Especially after the bashing it got last year.”
There have been reports from market observers that the endless controversies and corruption charges against the administrators behind the cricket extravaganza has seen a significant slump in the brand value of the IPL with every passing season, since 2010.
Some advertisers, too, have stayed away in recent years as a result of falling viewership. According to data provided by TAM Media Research, the viewership monitoring agency, in 2012, the first 68 matches of IPL-5 had average TRPs (television rating points) of 3.27 compared with 3.39 in IPL-4. The TRPs for 2013 aren’t available.
Still, the current levels of viewership continue to make it relevant to advertisers, said a sports marketing executive.
“IPL still remains one on the highest viewed cricket properties in the country,” said Hiren Pandit, chief operating officer at TransStadia, a sports infrastructure and content company. “It will still get you the viewership and numbers in terms of connecting with the masses. So brands will still find it a useful association.”
If the timing of the tournament works out, he added, any political party that manages to showcase its core values to the audience during the IPL could find the league a “game changer”.
