aditya ramgopal dot com

8 April 2008

IPL and the Internet

Posted by Aditya under: Cricket; Indian Premier League; Social Media; Twenty20 .

Pardon me for the highly cricket-centric nature of posts in the blog so far, but, I assure you, this post is hardly about cricket as you will find out.

I promised, in an earlier post, that I would give a detailed overview of the IPL from an internet marketing standpoint. In that article I listed out the eight franchises and gave a very brief overview of their respective site designs. I also pointed out that Mumbai Indians didn’t have a website. Newsflash: they still don’t have one, to my knowledge. Unless one considers this to be their official site. (It’s the second result on Google for the keyword “Mumbai Indians”. So the domain squatter(?) might stand to gain quite a bit of dough from Mr Ambani.) I also pointed out how pitiful it was to see the lack of any updates on the official IPL site; so much money and they couldn’t find anyone to update a few lines.

Now, according to reports, they have sold portal rights to a firm in North America — I think Setanta Sports, if I read it right. Anyway, I’ll try to talk as much about the potential of the Indian Premier League, from an internet viewpoint, as I can — in no particular order of importance.

1. Blogs — the first mover advantage

At the moment, I can say for sure that there are quite a few fan blogs sprouting up for the respective franchises. I run a fairly successful fan blog of a certain English Premier League football club that draws 2000 plus daily visitors on an average. So I can say with a certain authority that the first to set up a fan blog for a certain franchise, with some quality content can definitely do well for himself, not to mention some free publicity for the franchise in question. Doing some basic SEO would help him rise to the top of the pile. I might try to do a separate post on successfully running a fan blog, but that is besides the point.

It is essential for the IPL honchos as well as those of individual franchises to embrace these blogs because they will generate good buzz. The websites could also introduce a format in the mould of Guardian Sportblogs or Times Online’s Football blog, where by they could get respected writers (or ex-players) to write columns and invite comments from the fan base.

The same could be done with the parent website of the IPL. And if it is indeed Setanta, then I think they would get some competent writers on board and introduce the blog concept, as they do with soccer.

2. Mailing Lists and Forums

I noticed a pattern in all the IPL club websites. They do have a fan zone and they have a registration form that needs to be filled first. User data can be used for two things. One, for mailing lists to contact fans about contests, ticket deals and team news in general. All English Premier League clubs do this, and so do franchises in the US. The other reason is for users to register and become a part of message boards and forums.

Internet forums are increasingly the best place for fans to interact, and a mere peek into these forums can give franchises a wealth of information on fans’ thoughts.

3. Mobile contests and Social networking sites

More than the internet, in a country estimated to have close to 300 million cell phone users — according to Om Malik — which is about the population of the United States, mobile based contests and buzz will drive the next wave of marketing campaigns in India. I have heard about money transactions, in the form of minutes, being transferred through cell phones. So the mobile sector cannot be ignored.

And with the upwardly mobile city crowd that the IPL is sure to attract, every site must have a mobile version of it’s site ready.

I noticed the Rajasthan Royals site asking fans to promote them through Orkut and Facebook, and that is certainly a sign of how one cannot ignore the importance of social media anymore. Social media evangelist, Gaurav, of Gauravonomics fame, would concur, I am sure.

4. Youtube and clips of games

Now this would certainly become a talking point once the league gets underway. The English Premier League filed a class action suit against Google because Youtube took, what they thought, a lazy approach towards pulling out copyright clips from the Premier League. But I think, for a nascent league like the IPL, it must pull out all stops to allow people to upload and share clips of the IPL. Now one may wonder how this could be possible, considering the ongoing brouhaha over images and photos. The fact of the matter is, in the current scenario you cannot combat the public uploading these clips. However, if you allow them to share them on sites like Youtube, in the long run, you are giving the league the user generated buzz that money can’t necessarily buy. I am sure $$Lalit Modi$$ won’t accept this, but fighting illegal uploads won’t work — just ask the music industry.
A compromise could be setting up Youtube channels or Setanta offering clips that could be embedded in blogs that link back to the site. A certain
I think that’s about what I wanted to say on this, for the moment. I am sure there are plenty other ways of marketing the IPL. If you happened to stumble upon this site and found this interesting, then feel free to suggest ideas in the comments.

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