IPL matches will be prime time favourites: Lalit Modi

Lalit Modi, vice-president, BCCI, and chairman of Indian Premier League (IPL), having raised around Rs 8,000 crore even before IPL matches were played, plans to take over prime time on television, currently dominated by family soaps. Modi promises that cricket viewing will never be the same again.

"It suits prime time viewing. There is no other bigger reality show than cricket. With IPL, there will be instant gratification through music and Bollywood within three hours," said Modi at a panel discussion at Ficci-Frames 2008.

He said, "Our research shows that women and children came in large numbers to the stadium during 20:20 matches. If you look at any of the Indian stadiums, it is dominated by men."

Modi believes that IPL matches would be family entertainment with the Bollywood fraternity being present in strength. "If you have never watched cricket before in a stadium, then please go and see one of the IPL matches and see the change that it brought," said Modi.

However, even he agreed that there were a few challenges before the format gained acceptance among the masses.

"The acid test of these matches will be when Brett Lee gets Sachin Tendulkar and the crowd still cheers Lee," he said.

Modi further added that while it would take time for the rivalry among the cities to set in terms of advertisement, the marketing teams and the sponsors would have to gear up to the challenge.

Ajay Jadeja, cricketer and sports analyst, while admired the way Modi has tried to bring in a new genre of cricket, had his reservation. He said, "We like to watch the Indian cricket team go out and play. The biggest challenge will be to get the crowd into the stadiums and make them watch these players as a team."

While Jadeja felt that IPL would give a huge opportunity to the advertisers, the market was still fragmented.

Peter Hutton, senior V-P, programming and production, Ten Sports, said, "IPL is a great concept. India has never had sports during prime time. The attention that it has generated around the world has never happened before.

Countries that never aired live cricket are ready to broadcast IPL matches."

Thomas Hoehn, economics partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers UK, was a bit skeptical on the Rs 8,000 crore raised by BCCI through IPL.

While he admired the steps taken by IPL, he pointed out that globally only 45 per cent of sports revenues came from a sport that was most popular in a country.

If India wants to earn the big numbers that are being talked about, then this fact has to be kept in mind. The other point was the presence of pay TV for premier sports, still not popular in India.