Niche aims for the big league

With the hype around cricket leading to an equal amount of media clutter, sports marketers are trying to introduce Indians to global sports that do not yet have a large following in the country.

Soon niche sports such as baseball and cycling will be publicised in India through attractive marketing initiatives such as a talent hunt, exclusive tournaments and so on.

Sports marketing agency PDM Sports is in the process of tying up with the New York Yankees, one of the big league American baseball teams for a talent hunt contest called the Million Dollar Arm (MDA) in India.

PDM executives said they were also in talks with a second US baseball team for the initiative.

"The deal is to popularise a game such as baseball which has common traits with cricket. That way we are not moving too far away from the most loved game in the country, and yet popularising a foreign sport in India," said the head of PDM, Roland Landers.

Participants in the MDA would have to pitch a baseball thrice consecutively at a speed of 160 kilometres or more. The prize money is $1 million and the winners would get an opportunity to train with the US baseball teams.

Other less popular sports such as cycling are also inching towards the limelight. In November 2008, India will have its very own Tour of India cycling tournament. It will be a stage cycling event such as the popular 'Tour de France' and PDM has already tied up with UK-based Sweet Spot for the purpose.

Sweet Spot, which organises the Tour of UK and Tour of South Africa, will carry out the recce for the Indian cycling event. The venue is most likely to be in the northern terrain of the country, as the Cycling Federation of India is keen on the venue.

Along with Chennai-based TI Cycles, PDM is also planning to lobby with the government to introduce designated cycling lanes in cities such as Pune, Chandigarh and Delhi, where cycling is popular.

Landers said the reason for such a shift in focus for advertisers was the dropping television rating points (TRPs) for advertisements that were aired in between cricketing overs. This lead to sponsors vying for ground and title rights, where it is a guaranteed way of being seen.

The shortcoming of this is, however, that only limited sponsors can get the exclusive rights and then the rights are also expensive.