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Cover Points

This blog attempts to function as a confluence of thoughts from the blogosphere on any matters pertaining to international cricket.

Fairy tale ending and business beginning

Lots of articles on the IPL of course, usually pushing the "IPL = Bollywood + cricket" angle. The BBC News article includes  all the little incidents during the tournament, the Hindustan Times pushes "cricketainment." Rahul Bhattacharya mentions the branding issue at the Guardian:

Cricket had never seen such a PR blitz. Journalists, commentators, players, coaching staff were all first IPL spokespersons. In newspapers the IPL was covered every day on the front page, the city pages, the celeb pages, the business pages, apart from monopolising the sports pages.

If the corporate money pumped into the tournament gave it the profile, it also brought with it a grating intrusiveness. A six in the IPL, every 622 of them, was no longer a six, it was a 'DLF Maximum.' A sharp catch came branded as a 'Citi Moment Of Success'. Commentators tripped over each other to make these plugs. A future where a batsman executes a Toyota Front-Foot Drive against an Intel Faster One may not be the stuff of satire.

Dileep Premachandran and Srikanth talk a little more about the actual final game between Rajasthan and Chennai.
And the Times of India lays out the business case for the IPL in detail, with this titbit on ratings from the Hindu Business Line:

Broadcaster Sony Entertainment Television sold the 200-odd seconds saved from the inventory for the semi-finals and finals at rates of Rs 8-10 lakh each. “We can’t predict ratings, but given that a good match has gone up to 6-7 TRPs (television viewership ratings), we hope the finals to fetch us between 8-10 in vierwership ratings,” said Mr Rohit Gupta, President, Network Sales, Licensing and Telephony, Sony Entertainment Television.

According to media buyers, the DLF IPL is mopping up a significant amount from the market during the period. It’s a huge window, and unlike the World Cup, which takes place once in four years, the DLF IPLs will be an annual opportunity.

Finally, by no means last, Stuart MacGill has announced his retirement from Test cricket.

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