Cricket may be experiencing a slump in attendance in the stadiums in some matches in the international bilateral series but the trend is reversed when it comes to television viewership, especially during the Indian Premier League.
“The viewership has grown manifold from 100 million to 360 million in the past nine editions of the IPL and this is a healthy trend for cricket in India,’ says Prasana Krishnan, EVP and business head, sports cluster, of Sony Pictures Network (SPN), which is the broadcaster of IPL. “When it comes to cricket viewership there is a definite resurgence in all formats of the games be it the bilateral series or the international tournaments,” he adds, looking ahead to a bigger season of IPL in 2017.
“The popularity of IPL is a great thing to happen to cricket which is evident in the fact that it has become one of the biggest properties of the sports world. The IPL brings in the best cricketers of the world together in a competitive format and that is perhaps why the tournament is contributing so much in making cricket a pan-Indian sport,” Krishnan said.
With the tournament reaching its 10th year, SPN is looking to break the previous benchmarks in reach by expanding beyond the conventional Metro cities and foraying into the rural markets. Catching on the regional sentiment, the broadcaster already has separate commentary team of experts in three languages – Bengali, Tamil and Telugu.
Harsha Bhogle, the popular cricket commentator, is set to make a comeback in the IPL after remaining ‘off air’ for nearly a year when he apparently fell foul of the erstwhile BCCI administration. “Bhogle is expected to be back in the studio during the IPL but there are some paper-works to be completed,” Prasana said. With the Supreme Court induced reforms coming in place in BCCI under a Committee of Administrators, the noted commentator may get his position back.
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