The key to success for any organization is the ability to take the product to the best market places and thereby establishing your business in those places.
CLT20 has potential to take Cricket higher
When Indian Premier League (IPL) first came, it revolutioned the cricket to newer heights even in the gods country for cricket. More youngsters started following cricket, more crowds in the stadium, more TV viewers and thereby more money too. Whether the IPL achieved the club loyalty status or not is another question but the entertainment certainly changed the face of world cricket. Then BCCI combined with CA and other nation’s board inherited the concept of Champions League (CL) from football in a view of making more money by luring more people with the interest of finding out the champion club from across the globe.
It is to be noted that CL is a competition created by top cricketing boards together and not by the International Cricket Committee (ICC). But ICC agreed to open official window for a month to allow all International players to play in CL by not fixing any International tours during CL matches even though it still hadn’t been given official status like world cup. At the moment BCCI holds the CL committee pretty much with the way structure got changed to allow more number of IPL clubs to participate in CL and also resisting clubs from Pakistan. In the CL 2011, only 4 out of 10 clubs are actually champions from their own domestic cup and rests are runners-up. It makes no sense when domestic T20 champions were playing in qualifiers and runner-ups are straight into the main draw. But in spite of all this, cricket can benefit lot through the CL T20 with proper planning, visionary leader and sensible boards who are ready to accept lower revenues initially for better future income.
Hold the leagues in cricket developing countries
With clubs participating from 5 different continents in the world, CL is a great product that can be used to expand the marketing area for cricket. After being an unofficial (as per ICC) tournament, the hosting rights should not be limited to heads of CL like India, South Africa and Australia. If these boards wants cricket to be globalised and in need of more income, then it is best not only to host the CL in the premium member countries of ICC (i.e. countries with test status) and rather host it sometimes in countries like Ireland, Scotland, Malaysia, USA and China where the cricket is fast growing.
CL 2011 includes legends like Sachin and Kallis, charming players like Dhoni and Lee, attractive players like Steyn, Pollard, Tait, Hussey, De Villers and more, all who could have taken the cricket to extreme corners of the world where the game of cricket never enjoys his reputation. Imagine watching these players playing together and against in USA or in South America where the value of sports are generally very high. Surely the CL 2011 would have had better opening, excitement and TRP rating if it had been hosted in those countries than in India now.
Newer things never lacks in amazements but only if it arrives with big surprising packages.
Tags: Champions League, CL, CL T20, CLT20, Cricket, ICC, Indian Premier League
