cricket it's a sport that dates back
over 400 years and as of 2019 is
officially played in 104 countries
around the world but crickets popularity
is starting to take a hit and things are
especially bad in the country of its
birth the UK ratings there have fallen
off a cliff less people are playing the
sport and attendance at traditional Test
cricket matches is falling part of the
problem you can no longer watch Creek on
TV for free in the UK in 2005 the sport
became of pay to watch event on TV when
the England cricket board saw the
broadcasting rights to Sky Sports into
the game for the clubs in the ECB it
killed the television audience and since
that day we've seen attendances
declining we've seen participation
decline we've seen you know the sport
really struggle to generate the next
generation of fans and players another
problem attention spans appear to be
getting shorter traditional games known
as Test matches last for five days and
cricket enthusiasts just aren't as
patient as they used to be so you're
asking people to people a lot that less
your time and we know that working
commitments are higher in the UK now
than ever before people are being asked
to work more and if less disposable
income of free time so if it does a big
factory as well with a small I think in
but there is one country where cricket
is more popular than ever
India crickets worldwide fan base is
comprised of roughly 1 billion people
and the indian subcontinent alone makes
up 90% of those fans in India the
country adopted a brand new shorter
format of the game Fez drastically cut
down on playing time from days to hours
the Indian Premier League or the IPL has
only been around for 12 years but it's
fast become one of the most popular and
valuable cricket leagues on the planet
the IPL's brand value has nearly doubled
in the last five years in 2018 the
league was valued at 6.3 billion dollars
ericsson 510 million dollars each year
from its broadcasting rights deal making
it the only Cricket League in the world
to crack the top 20 most valuable media
rights deals in all of professional
sports joining the ranks of the NFL the
NBA and Emma
be so how did the IPL become one the
most lucrative cricket leagues on the
planet and could the surge in popularity
engineer a turnaround for cricket on the
world stage the first record of cricket
being played as an adult sport was in
1611 in England the sport started to
take shape in the 17th century and by
1709 it was recognized as a legitimate
pro sport this was about the time that
professional village cricketers were
hired to join County teams by the early
18th century
Krita was the leading sport in London
and other counties across England
because of the reach of the British
Empire the sport took root around the
world when it came to the British Empire
and when it came to Britain colonizing
the world cricket was seen as a way
potentially of civilizing the world
cricket has a series of mores as a
series of codes of conduct such as
walking when the when the umpire gives
you out there was an element as well of
muscular Christianity that healthy
exercise was very very good as early as
the 17th century Cregar was being played
in English colonies in North America and
during the 18th century colonists
introduced cricket to the West Indies
and Australia while Mariners from
Britain to East India Trading Company
brought the game to India in the 19th
century New Zealand and South Africa
also began to play the sport over the
years cricket has evolved into three
different formats Test cricket one day
and twenty20 the Test cricket format
debuted in 1877 these matches last five
days one day cricket started back in
1971 and as the name implies cricket
matches conclude within a single day and
in 2003 twenty20 was established
twenty20 is a streamlined version of
cricket that allows for faster gameplay
and more scoring 2020 games typically
wrap up in about three hours each
version of cricket has leagues around
the world but twenty20 is the most
popular format of the game today and in
India it created its own twenty20 League
in 2007 when rolled out the Indian
Premier League
in India cricket is huge it's been a
staple in Indian sports since the 1700s
and it's currently the most popular
sport in the country the IPL is one of
the richest sports properties in the
world
and while the IPL isn't the only Cricket
League in India it is no successful
league in the country the 48 day annual
tournament was created in 2007 with the
help of the Board of Control for Cricket
in India an Indian businessman Lalit
Modi even though cricket already had a
few pro cricket leagues they wanted to
capitalize on the commercial success of
2020 so they modeled the IPL in a
similar nature to pro sports in the US
the IPO was specifically modeled after
the likes of the NFL which has a
decentralized league meaning that all
teams are owned and operated
independently also similar to the NFL
model the IPL it's only with its own
unique structure there is a separate t20
World Cup where India competes but
that's different from the IPL even
though matches are all held in India
team rosters are chock-full of a top
international talent in 2018 team spent
94 million dollars to buy a hundred
sixty nine players in an auction up from
its 14 million dollars for sixty six
players in 2017 but what you've actually
got in the IPL our franchises who
represent a city a place an industrial
heartland and you've got therefore did
the support of some major entrepreneurs
so rather than let's say Delhi against
North so you've got your IPL franchise
is based around the cities and that has
actually had a massive impact in terms
of the global cricket to make sure the
stands are filled with as many iCal fans
as possible and to maximize TV
viewership matches are typically played
in the evening and on weekends the IPL
is a huge moneymaker in India since 2014
the IPL's brand valuation has doubled to
6.3 billion dollars the reason the IPL
has one largest fan base is for a single
sports league in the world during its
opening week of the 2018 season the IPO
broke records
371 million viewers tuned in to watch
and by the last week of the tournament a
total of seven hundred and sixty nine
million fans watched the 2018 IPL season
the ad revenue generated for that season
was over two hundred and seventy six
million dollars of hornist our India's
managing director high ratings and AD
dollars were a big part of why major US
media companies had their eyes on the
high heels broadcasting rights when the
IPL launched in 2008 the league Asian
beanie rights to Singapore based sports
marketing agency world sport group they
broadcast an IPL matches on India's Sony
max TV channel under the terms of the
10-year contract world sport group paid
the IPL approximately 1 million dollars
per match in its first year for the
exclusive broadcasting rights the
overall value of that broadcasting deal
was 918 million dollars when the
broadcasting deal expired in 2017
there was a global bidding war for
exclusive rights for the IPL Fox and
Sony put in competing bids while
Facebook also put its hat in the ring
for the 2018 2020 to digital rights of
the IPL making a six hundred million
dollar offer those TV and digital rights
eventually went to Fox the American
broadcaster struck a five-year 2.55
billion dollar deal for the global media
rights of the IPL the price per match
jump from 1 million dollars to about
eight point four seven million dollars
per game for comparison the NFL cost per
game is around twenty two point five
million dollars the English Premier
League
is around thirteen point two million
dollars the NBA is close to two million
dollars and the MLB is just six hundred
and thirty thousand dollars per game
just two years after the ink dried on
the Fox IPL deal Disney completed a 71
billion dollar deal for Fox
entertainments assets one of the assets
that Disney now owns is hot star the
Indian video streaming company in 2019 a
streaming service at a global record for
the number of people tuning into a live
streaming event there were eighteen
point six million concurrent viewers
watching the IPL final match on ha
Starr's website and app and with that
kind of viewership naming rights for the
IPL are also huge for the lead since
2008 the IPOs naming rights have changed
hands three times from brands DLF
to go India and finally to vivo a mobile
handset manufacturer in China vivo first
took over title sponsorship in 2015 and
in 2017 vivo signed a fresh five-year
deal with the IPL worth approximately
341 million dollars in 2018 the average
salary of cricket players in the IPL
jumped nearly 30 percent from the year
before all thanks to the massive TV deal
silent fox in 2017 before that deal
players across the league had an average
salary of 3.9 million dollars what in
2018 the average salary was just over
five million dollars and unlike other
major sports leagues the IPL season is
so short that players have a chance to
bank even more cash in the offseason the
IPL takes place in the spring starting
at the end of March or early April and
continuing through May that means
cricketers have the flexibility to play
for other clubs around the world take
the Mumbai Indians player Kieron Pollard
in 2017 here in more than 1 million
dollars for two months they play for the
Mumbai Indians and the IPL in that same
year Pollard had multiple revenue
streams from playing for Cricket leagues
in Australia Bangladesh and South Africa
but just as cricket first spread across
the world in the 18th century cricketer
latest format of twenty20 similarly
taking root across the globe there's
even a record-breaking investment for a
twenty20 league in a country where
cricket is even remotely popular the
u.s. in May 2019 USA Cricket received a
1 billion dollar investment from
American cricket enterprises to develop
a twenty20 league in America it's one of
the biggest deals for development of
domestic cricket in the US and the
launch of the league is set to take off
in 2021
since the twenty20 cricket format was
introduced in 2003 and has taken the
cricket world by storm and it doesn't
seem to be slowing down anytime soon
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