The DLF Indian Premier League today announced that Vodafone Essar, one of India’s leading cellular service providers, has been chosen as the official telecom partner for the league for a period of five years.
Lalit Modi, chairman and commissioner, DLF Indian Premier League said, “Vodafone has a long standing association with sports globally, ranging from Formula 1 with the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes to the UEFA Champions League. I am sure that the company’s association with the DLF Indian Premier League as its official partner will prove to be mutually beneficial.”
With this, tickets for the DLF Indian Premier League matches will now be available on Vodafone live! for Vodafone customers. Vodafone customers will also be able to participate in the Predict the Man of the Match contest and the winner will be announced as the Vodafone winner of the contest, at the post-match presentation ceremony.
NEW DELHI: In a bid to derisk their business model, multiplex owners are turning to sports to generate an alternate source of revenues. While PVR Cinemas would test-pilot the screening of the entire F1 series and Euro 2008, others like Adlabs and Inox are also keen on screening sports content like the Indian Premier League (IPL) to sustain occupancies.
PVR Cinemas has acquired the theatrical rights from Star India to showcase the entire F1 series. In addition the multiplex chain would show some of the key matches of soccer series — Euro 2008. PVR Cinemedia CEO Gautam Dutta said: “We are partnering the UB Group (Kingfisher brand) for the live screening of F1 series in select cities from May 11. It will be our first experiment with live sports series. We believe that as a multiplex player we need to transform ourselves into a complete entertainment brand.”
UB Group, which owns Force India, would partner with PVR and sponsor some of these races by inviting F1 enthusiasts to watch the races. Mr Dutta added that initially the revenue stream through sports content would be low, given the fact that F1 has niche audience. However, it has the potential to become a significant alternate revenue stream.
Adlabs Cinemas, which is in the process of building megaplexes in 15 cities, has said in the past that it would look at screening sports and other genre of content. This would be necessary as it will be unviable to screen only films in these megaplexes, believe experts.
The Indian Premier League has already caught the fancy of multiplex players. High costs per screen is currently making it economically unviable for cineplexes to show the entire series. However, all multiplexes are in the fray to screen at least the last key matches. Inox Leisure COO Alok Tandon said: “We are looking for the best viable options to be able to screen sports content, as and when they happen. We are even in talks to screen IPL matches and would like to show at lease the last few matches.”
With real estate prices going on an overdrive and movie producers asking for higher margins, sports could emerge as an interesting alternative. Says AT Kearney principal Debashish Mukherjee: “Movies would be the primary source of revenues for multiplex players. Sports, if well timed, can also bring in good revenue for movie exhibition players.”
Mr Mukherjee added that usually movie producers release their movies during summer, Diwali or in the Christmas season. “If sports content can help fill in the gaps for cineplexes, it can be an add-on source of revenue,” he said.
Bangalore, May 7: Owned by the King of good times, the Bangalore Royal Challengers are not having the best of times.Following the team’s dismal performance in the Indian Premier League, CEO Charu Sharma’s head was the first to roll and he was replaced by Brijesh Patel, the KSCA secretary. It is learnt that Venkatesh Prasad was saved the axe as skipper Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble stepped in for the beleaguered coach and persuaded Mallya to retain him.
According to team sources, infuriated by the string of failures, Mallya, who had left the team selection to Dravid and Charu during the auction, decided that enough was enough. Mallya was also keen on seeing the exit of the Indian bowling coach, but relented after Dravid and Kumble vouched for Prasad’s usefulness.On Wednesday, things took an interesting turn as Charu claimed that he had not resigned and that he was dismissed. “I was summarily dismissed from my duties, three hours before I was to board a flight to Kolkata for the next match,” Charu said in a statement. “I am not a quitter, especially, when the chips are down,” he added.
Though it’s not exactly washing dirty linen in public the issue seems to be snowballing into a controversy.It’s said that there no enemies and friends in politics, and it proved true when Brijesh stepped into Charu’s shoes. Brijesh and Mallya were involved in a bitter battle during the KSCA elections last year. Mallya had backed Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, who had led the anti-Brijesh campaign during the elections.
It is true that Brijesh has a vast experience when it comes to management, but it remains to be seen how much he can impact the performance of the Challengers.Not only did the selection of players during the auction throw up a question mark, it also rankled that several local talents were ignored. The Challengers’ loss proved to be Mumbai’s gain as Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, and Gaurav Dhiman were roped in by the Mumbai Indians.
With Goa coming under the Challengers’ domain, they had the option of selecting opener Swapnil Asnodkar.Instead, they picked up former Karnataka skipper J. Arun Kumar, who is playing for Goa these days. Asnodkar would have also solved the opening conundrum for the Bangalore team and his ability can be gauged by his performances for the Rajasthan Royals.
With the odds stacked against them and stuck at the bottom of the points table, life can only get tougher for the Challengers.
In the rain interrupted match, Kolkata Knight Riders broke the jinx and atlast won the match by runs. They had set a target of 130 for the Royal Challengers and that proved to be too much for the Royal Challengers. They started off miserably and lost Chaderpaul of just 17 and then the next to go was Jagadeesh Arunkumar.The problem for Challengers was not wickets but the climbing runrate. The bowlers of Knight Riders were superbly assisted by the fielders. Fielders were throwing themself for saving each run and in the end it was the combine efforts of superb bowling and fielding which helped Knight Riders win the match. In the last over Royal Challengers needed 19 runs and they were short by 5 runs. So after loosing the last 4 matches Knight Riders are back and the happiness was seen on in the camp and also on the dancing Shahrukh Khan’s face.
The 29th match of DLF – IPL was interrupted by rain and due to this, umpires had decided to reduce the overs to 16 over each. Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and decided to bat first but had a dismal start as they lost Akash Chopra when the team score was 9. Soon Hodge also was out leaving the Knight Riders at 20/2. Captain Ganguly then played some brave shots before he was brilliantly run out and the team score was 46/3. Hussey and Taibu then took the score past 50 and at a team score of 64 at which Hussey also returned to pavilion.Taibu and L.N Shukla also felt soon and the Knight Riders were struggling at 88/6 in 12 overs. Some sloppy fielding and some good hits to the boundary finally took the score of Knight Riders to 129 runs in 16 overs.
Lets see how the bowlers try to restrict the Royal Challengers Batsmen.