IPL News

The Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) have refused to rule out the possibility of England’s leading players joining the Indian Premier League (IPL). Only Dimitri Mascarenhas has so far signed up to the IPL, while the likes of Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen have poured water on suggestions that they and their team-mates could be lured to the IPL by money.

Currently, the IPL clashes with England’s county season but Lalit Modi, its chairman, maintains his willingness to shift the dates of future tournaments in order to accommodate English players. The ECB chairman, Giles Clarke, strongly believes that England’s players would rather play for their country than an Indian franchise, but Sean Morris, the PCA chief executive, is aware of the need for a balance.

“We will ask the players how they feel,” he said. “We need to sit them down and ask their personal views - some might have different opinions to others. But I would like to think on behalf of the players we would be able to take advantage of this concept and allow them to reap the benefits.

“There may be a very strong collective view but there may also be different circumstances for each individual which would affect their decision. We have a very open dialogue with the ECB right now, we met this week and will be meeting with them again next week, so there is a strong channel of communication.

“Mr Modi is saying that he’s prepared to move his tournament to accommodate English players and that is music to everyone’s ears in this country.”

The issue the PCA are trying to address with the ECB is the potential restriction of employment.

“Their priority is England, they’ve all said that,” Morris said. “But I just hope we can come to a point where they’re comfortable with their arrangement with the ECB as their employers and take advantage of the increase in income into the game, because you’re a long time retired.

“Restricting employees anywhere will cause friction in a relationship - over a period of time that will break it down.”

Meanwhile Dougie Brown, the PCA chairman, insisted that for all the players’ loyalty to England, “IPL is not something that is going to go away - it’s going to be around for 10 years” and the ECB need to act sharply.

“So we have to compartmentalise it within our own calendar, create a window of opportunity, or it will be a precarious situation that the ECB will find themselves in. You might find guys coming to the end of their careers will not sign a central contract, they will go and sign with the IPL instead. Suddenly you will be losing people a couple of years earlier than you might have

Two of England’s leading international grounds, Lord’s and The Oval, are considering offers to stage exhibition games involving teams from the Indian Premier League, according to a report in The Times.

Although the venues for the initial games have already been allocated in India, there seems an increasing likelihood that other international venues will be also be used, as a way to promote the tournament around the world as much as provide world-class facilities. As it stands, however, the London venues will only host exhibition matches.

Paul Sheldon, the Surrey chief executive, declined to comment to The Times, while a spokesman for the MCC also refused to make a statement.

Meanwhile, the Domestic Structure Review Group, chaired by Glamorgan chairman Paul Russell, will go before the ECB on April 9 and is due to suggest a radical response to the IPL. The committee proposes two new Twenty20 competitions, the first of which will run in early summer along similar lines to the old Benson & Hedges Cup which ran for 30 years from 1972. It will feature Minor Counties, the universities and Ireland and Scotland.

The second tournament, according to today’s Daily Telegraph, will be called the English Premier League, taking place at the height of summer and consisting of 21 teams in three groups of seven - with county sides supplemented by international players from India, Australia and South Africa. The idea falls in line with the suggestions made by ECB’s chairman, Giles Clarke, that England should mirror some of the IPL’s makeup: namely, that Twenty20 sides field three overseas players and four players under the age of 23.

“We wanted to see something radical come out of this committee,” an insider told the Daily Telegraph, “but instead it is as if they have put all the same balls into the hat, shaken them around a bit and taken them out again.

“The idea of restoring the old Benson & Hedges Cup under a different name is just crazy. What this needed is some vision, a different pair of eyes. The DSRG should have gone out and sought the input of the players, the press, television. What about city teams, for instance, rather than counties? If we don’t take this thing by the scruff of the neck, we will find that the game has been pinched off us by other operators.”

From April 18, all cricket lovers are in for a bonanza, till the final on June 1. The viewers will get to see a lot of high-on-adrenaline action on the field. It’s already been announced that the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) match will be between SRK’s Kolkata Knight Riders and Vijay Mallya’s Bangalore Royal Challengers at the Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bangalore.

Quite obviously then, in a cricket crazy nation like ours, everything else will take a backseat. Even movies, our other everlasting love and teleserials. With 59 matches, all played during late afternoon and evening coinciding with prime time TV, the event may well spoil some good parties in Bollywood.

In the words of Lalit Modi, Chairman and commissioner, DLF IPL, “The live in-stadia entertainment, combined with on-field action will hook viewers onto this new adrenaline packed live family entertainment format. It’ll also be attracting a younger fan base, including women and children.”

The general entertainment television is pulling out all stops to ensure that the audience does not abandon them. The Twenty20 matches will start from 4 pm onwards, with the day’s last match starting at 8 pm. While 4 pm to 6 pm is crucial for music and kids channels, 9 pm to 11 pm is prime time for channels Star Plus, Zee TV , NDTV Imagine, 9X and Sony Entertainment Television.

April is the peak season for advertising agencies flush with funds at the beginning of the new fiscal year. With summer and vacations a step away, it is also the season for aggressive advertising for summer products.

Most channels are launching new, big budget shows to keep viewers from switching loyalties, with big buck celebrities being roped in. Star Plus is all set to launch ‘Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?’, a game show with Shah Rukh Khan. Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd has recently launched ‘Rock-N-Roll Family’ with actors Kajol and Ajay Devgan as Judges, while INX Media will launch ‘Chak De Bachche’, yet another talent hunt show.

Cricket experts also feel that the Indian team’s T20 triumph and their victory in Australia will further boost the TRPs for this first-of-its-kind tournament. Also, the tournament will stretch for almost a month and a half ? 44 days to be precise. And cricket enthusiasts will try their best not to miss a single evening. Does that send a shiver down Bollywood’s collective spine? What will happen to the new releases falling within this period, or for that matter, the weekend business?

“It will surely hit the Box Office in a big way. Whenever there is something big like this happening, the curiosity levels are high and that will have people glued to their TV sets. The same happened when Big B and SRK hosted KBC. Later, of course, it’ll all depend on who’s playing against whom,” says trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

Producer Ravi Chopra’s film, Bhootnath, is to be released during the same time. He says, “How popular it is going to be will be known only once it kicks-off. ICL per se has not been a run away hit but considering there are big stars involved in IPL, it can be popular. Our release date, as of now, is May 9. We will assess the situation and take a call by then.”

Arab Digital Distribution (ADD), a pay-TV platform management company, has won 10-year exclusive television coverage rights for DLF Indian Premier League (IPL). The telecast rights extend to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) territories.

Live coverage would be made available to audiences in the UAE, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan and Libya via Pehla/Art Premium Sports.

ADD currently offers Art - Premium Arabic Entertainment, Pehla - Premium Asian Entertainment, First Net - Premium International Entertainment.

Lalit Modi, Chairman and commissioner, IPL said, “BCCI-IPL would like to welcome Art Prime Sports, part of Art, as its newest broadcast partner in the Middle East and North Africa, and is pleased to be working with Art Prime Sports on the broadcast of the DLF Indian Premier League in the Middle East and North Africa. We are confident that this will be a successful working partnership, and believe that the wide variety of viewers of Art will have an exciting lineup of matches to look forward to with an array of international stars and the best of cricketing action.”

Vinod D’Mello, Executive Vice-president, Strategy and planning, ADD said, “The exclusive opportunity to watch reigning cricketing greats in action is nothing short of a surprise gift for lovers of the sport in the Middle East. Cricketing action is a big draw for television viewers whether they understand the sport or not. Its appeal cuts across all segments of viewers irrespective of age, gender or marital status.”

Speaking to the BBC, Modi said: “I know a lot of them are interested but we don’t want to conflict with the English season. If that means we have to move our matches a few weeks in advance, we would be happy to do that to accommodate the English players. We would like to see a lot of the English players in the IPL but I cannot commit to them until the ECB actually finds a window and clears them.”

Modi has said several times over the past month that English players were interested, and his latest comments seem to be a response to Giles Clarke, the England board (ECB) chairman, who said at the weekend that no English-qualified players could be poached by the IPL. “We have a contract with the BCCI [Indian board] … in that contract, they’re not allowed to take any English players of any kind to play in IPL if there is no No Objection Certificate. The IPL will not play any player who has not received an NOC.”

Modi has maintained that the IPL will work with the England board, although earlier this month he suggested that the ECB might “move their season back by a few weeks … then we can have a window. It would be a win-win situation for everybody.”

That idea, aside from the meteorological issues, left Clarke distinctly unimpressed. “We are not interested in people playing in the IPL,” he said. “The IPL is a domestic competition and we’re not going to alter our season for a domestic season in another country.”

Modi is aware he has to be careful. While as chairman of the IPL he can say what he wants, he has to balance that position with his role as vice-president of the Indian board.

The IPL is already impacting on England with several overseas players preferring to play in it rather than start the season with their counties. And while only one England player - Dimitri Mascarenhas - has signed, it has been announced that five of the New Zealand squad for the tour which starts in five weeks will miss two warm-up games because of their IPL commitments.

Clarke has maintained that the large sums of money on offer are still not enough to tempt the best in his country. “I don’t think the rewards being talked about are particularly ones England players would be interested in,” he said. “Should any player give up his English contract he would, of course, risk losing his England place. We play international cricket during the time the IPL is on and most players don’t want to lose their international place.”

Asked about Mascarenhas, Clarke made clear his position. “As far as the ECB was concerned it was entirely a matter for his employer. Hampshire are taking a serious risk, which they acknowledge, that Mascarenhas might get injured while playing in the IPL and be out for the whole English summer.”

One England player who might sign, Modi hinted, is Steve Harmison. Although he has a central contract, it appears increasingly unlikely that will be renewed after a string of substandard performances led to him being dropped from the side in New Zealand.

The signs are that the relative harmony that has so far existed between the IPL and the ECB could start to be tested in the coming months as the IPL’s desire to sign up as many of the leading stars grows. That, in turn, could test the relationship between the board and its contracted players.

While many cricket buffs turned to news channels to keep track of the match, most Chennaiites blamed the Conditional Access System (CAS) for not being able to watch it on their TV screens.

“Had CAS not been implemented in the city, we would have watched it on our television sets,” a keen follower of the game told this website’s newspaper With Doordarshan deciding not to telecast the match, Nimbus, the rights holder for the series, did it.

Most Chennaiites having DTH connections too could not watch the match, as the channel (Neo Sports) is only available with Tata Sky DTH. The most affected were those who hear the commentary on radio.

Under the Sports Broadcasting Signals Act 2007, only events deemed of national importance are aired on DD and AIR. The Act passed by the Lok Sabha in March last year was used by the I&B Ministry to ensure rights holder Nimbus shared its feed of the last India-Pakistan series with DD and AIR.

Speaking to this website’s newspaper from Mumbai, the marketing relations manager of Neo Sports, Amrita Pai, said, “Even though DD is not telecasting it, we have given our feeding to subscribers of Tata Sky services.”

DD, the terrestrial broadcaster,reaches 75% of the Indian population in the urban region and has 38% of the rural population. While viewers will be the worst hit by the move, the decision will help private broadcasters net the maximum revenue out of their rights.

http://www.televisionpoint.in/2008/03/27/fans-fret-as-dd-fails-to-air-cricket/

The airlines bagged the order for five years for Rs 106 crore. The IPL now has commitments from real estate major DLF for Rs 200 crore for the title sponsorship, Hero Honda as co-sponsor at Rs 90 crore, PepsiCo India as the beverage partner at Rs 50 crore and Kingfisher Airlines as the umpire sponsor.The UB Group, owned by Vijay Mallya, had first bought the Bangalore region (Royal Challengers) at $111.6 million for 10 years and thereafter Kingfisher became the associate sponsor of the Delhi Daredevils team.

“Kingfisher Airlines has been associated with a variety of sports at the domestic and international levels. Its decision is testimony to the fact that the DLF Indian Premier League is here to stay,” said Lalit Modi, Chairman and commissioner, DLF Indian Premier League.

Under the agreement, Kingfisher will receive branding rights on the umpires’ uniform and other opportunities.Vijay Mallya, Chairman and CEO, Kingfisher Airlines, said, “We are delighted to extend our partnership with the DLF Indian Premier League. Kingfisher Airlines will present the DLF IPL umpires in a completely new and modern style while retaining their critical role in the sport.”

The first match will be played between Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders and Vijay Mallya’s Royal Challengers of Bangalore at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

The DLF Indian Premier League (IPL) has announced that Kingfisher Airlines has bagged the rights to being the official umpire partner for the league and will also sponsor all third umpire decisions during the 59 games in the forthcoming DLF IPL.

The umpire partnership deal is worth Rs 1.06 billion for a five year period. As per the agreement, Kingfisher Airlines will receive branding on the umpires’ uniform including their shirts and hats during the DLF IPL, along with several other activation opportunities around the property.

“IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi says, “I am very pleased to have the country’s premier five-star airline Kingfisher join us as the umpire partner in an exclusive five-year deal. Kingfisher Airlines has a long association with a variety of sports at both the domestic and international level including tennis, Formula 1, polo and now cricket.

“Their decision bears testimony to the fact that the DLF Indian Premier League is here to stay and is set to carve out a distinct niche for itself in the international cricket calendar.”

Kingfisher Airlines chairman and CEO Dr Vijay Mallya said, “We are delighted to extend our partnership with the DLF Indian Premier League with Kingfisher Airlines coming in as the official umpire partner. Our five-year association with the DLF Indian Premier League is further testimony of our commitment to building the Kingfisher Airlines brand through sports.

“The DLF Indian Premier League is a highly innovative concept and the Twenty20 format will undoubtedly take cricket’s popularity to a new high. Kingfisher Airlines will present the DLF IPL umpires in a completely new and modern style while retaining their critical role in the sport.”

Earlier, sports broadcaster Sony Max and World Sport Group had bagged the global media and production rights for $1.026 billion.