Cricket + Indians + Marketers

I myself am not a Cricket enthusiast but I couldn't resist myself from writing a few words on India's early exit from the Cricket World Cup 2007 (or I should say the unnecessary drama attached with Indian Cricket).

It would be normal if every kid in India thinks of becoming a cricketer one day but I doubt how many of them want to be cricketers because they actually 'love' the game. Its more because of the perks a player gets while he is playing for the country.

On an average a player is doing more advertisements than playing matches. They are everywhere. Most of the daily use products are endorsed by one or other cricketer, the reason is that Indians are so much emotionally attached to the game that its hard for any marketing team to neglect the possibility of boosting their sales by relating their product to cricket. Be it shoes, Television, Cars, Telecom sector or the cold drinks, every other thing is endorsed by a cricketer. It is evident that Indian Cricket team is doing better in advertising industry than on the Cricket field. A sports channel paid $1.1bn to buy the rights for international cricket telecast and they are banking on Indian viewers to recover 80% of the massive amount spent. After all Cricket is one thing that always sells in India.

Advertisers suffered a loss of around Rs. 3.5 billion (81.3 million USD) after India's early exit. The sponsorship money lost is around 300 million USD.
Thats a lot of money!

But all this is because we are so much into the game. Here are some examples...

1. During the Indian team's departure to the Caribbean people worshiped the players' posters and after India's early exit the same people were protesting against the players, setting their posters on fire.

2. There was a news that 3 people died off heart-attack after India's defeat against Sri Lanka in the World Cup(although there was no authentication that it was because of the cricket match).

3. Fans sent mails to editor of The Economic Times about banning cricket on media, showing their disappointment towards the downfall

I'm waiting to see fans' reactions to a match where someone scores a century to sail India to victory ;)

The catch is that Indians will always find a way to relate themselves to Cricket and marketers will continue to exploit this trait to make big bucks.