How IPL became one of the most successful sports leagues in the world?
The Indian Premier League is a professional twenty-20 cricket league that was started in the year 2008. Presently, the 14th session of IPL is in the process which is expected to be completed on 15th October 2021. IPL was started after India won the 1st twenty-20 cricket world cup and the T-20 cricket format became very popular in India. In this article, you will know how IPL became one of the most popular and successful leagues in the world. Before jumping directly to the reasons, let’s study some figures which will show how much progress IPL made over the years. After 9 years of its inception, in 2017, IPL became the 6th most popular tournament in the world. From 2008 to 2018, IPL’s price per match increased 747%. In 2008, the?price per match was $ 1million which increased to $ 8.47 million in 2018. From its inception till 2020, IPL saw a huge increase in title sponsorship deals. In 2008, DLF became the title sponsor of IPL in a deal of Rs. 200 crores for 5 years i.e.Rs.40 crore/year whereas the title sponsorship money increased to Rs.222 crore/year in 2020 when it was brought by Dream 11. Over the years, the salary of players also increased many folds. For example, Virat Kohli was paid only Rs.12 lakh by Royal Bangalore Challengers in the year 2008, and in 2020, he drew a salary of Rs.17 crore. BCCI pays Rs7 crore to Virat Kohli as his yearly salary which is less than half of his IPL salary. Not only Virat Kohli but all the players earn a great amount of money through IPL. After seeing all the figures, we can surely say that IPL is a very successful tournament. Now, let’s study what are the reasons behind the success of IPL?
Reasons for success of IPL:
Following are the reasons that I have found which made the IPL a huge success:?
3 hours matches
IPL catered to the needs of consumers. Organizers knew that the people are no more available for full-day matches mainly because of their busy schedules. Also, the attention span of people is getting shorter. Organizers utilized this opportunity in their favor by bringing this short duration (3 hours) cricket match format. People enjoyed the matches as they don’t have to invest a large amount of time. Also, matches are filled with a lot of thrill as a lot of fours and sixes are hit during the IPL matches as compared to normal matches. Players show great fielding skills by doing unbelievable moves. These 3 hours matches format proved to be a great source of enjoyment to viewers.
Timing of tournament and matches
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, all the tournaments were planned during the Indian summer season. It was the time when all the school kids get summer holidays and also many college-going students get a term break. The large viewership of IPL comes from this age group only. School going kids and people in the age group of 18-30 years, accounted for 49% of viewership of IPL which is nearly half of the viewership of the IPL. People elder than this age group also get affected by the liking of this age group which proved to be strategically beneficial for IPL. Apart from the timing of the tournament, matches are also planned keeping the availability of viewers in mind. Nearly all the important matches of the tournament are played at night. At night, Indian family members come together and look for the entrainment and that perfect entertainment was supplied by IPL. Thus, the?timing of the tournament was one of the most important factors in the success of IPL.
Glamour in gentlemen’s game
IPL added the sensual flavor in the cricket by bringing Bollywood and cheerleaders into the picture. In India, people are crazy followers of Bollywood and Cricket. IPL integrated both of them and presented addictive tournament. During the tournament, many cricketers came very close to Bollywood actresses which became the talk of the town. This led to people engaging with IPL not only during the matches but post-match events also. Seeing this trend of viewers' engagement with IPL beyond matches, franchises started to broadcast behind-the-scenes videos on Youtube and other platforms. Apart from this, cheerleaders became a major point of attraction during the matches. Viewers enjoyed watching cheerleaders dancing and cheering for their respective teams.
Crazy largest cricket fan base in India
In one of the largest sports market research by ICC, it was found that India constitutes 90% of 1 billion cricket fan base. That is a huge number!! People are crazy to the extent that they have built a temple of Sachin Tendulkar in Bihar. They preach cricket as their religion. This behavior of Indians was rightly utilized by IPL. It supplied what was demanded by consumers by bringing more fun elements as compared to the normal format and made itself a great success.?
Naming teams after Indian cities/states
IPL organizers named all franchisees in the name of Indian states or cities. For example, Chennai Super Kings is named after Tamil Nadu’s metropolitan city Chennai. It proved to be a great strategy used by IPL organizers as people formed a great association with the teams that are playing in IPL because they live in the state after which the team is named. The underlying reason for this is the AFFECT state where consumers make decisions based on their emotions rather than rationality. Viewers were emotionally attached to their teams and became loyal followers. Also, franchises brought in marketing campaigns in?regional languages to form a deeper connection?with their target audience. For example, Chennai Super Kings had a marketing campaign named “Whistle Podu” and Kings XI Punjab named one of their marketing campaigns as “ Sadda Squad, Sadda Punjab”. Both the teams used regional words as their marketing campaigns tagline. Deep-level association with viewers turns out to be beneficial in the success of IPL.?
Controversies adding spices in the tournament
Negative news attracts more viewers and discussions than positive ones. When we talk about IPL then every edition has some controversies attached with it. In one edition, viewers heard the news of Harbhajan Singh slapping Sreesanth and in another season, Shahrukh Khan got banned from entering Wankhede Stadium, due to his misbehavior with stadium officials. One of the major controversies which came to light was that of spot-fixing in IPL. These controversies proved good for IPL as it increased viewers of IPL. Every year new records of IPL viewership broke. In 2020, IPL recorded?31.57 million viewership which was an increase of 23% as compared to 2019. We may see many more controversies happening in future IPL season’s as it acts as a catalyst in its growth.?
Campaigns that formed association with common man’s life
Every year IPL comes up with new unique marketing campaign that people can easily associate with their lives. Marketers used Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) to make their ads a great success. For example, in IPL season 2013, IPL launched marketing campaign named as “ India aaj se sirf dekhneka nahi !” which showed how people from different walks of life actively taking part in the IPL tournament. Dance steps of that edition became popular on the title song of that season i.e. “Jumping Japang Jumpak Jumpak”. IPL brings unique marketing campaigns in every season which attracts a lot of attention of viewers and thus leads to increasing in viewership and engagement.?
Huge money poured in tournament
According to the ESPN study, the price per IPL match increased from $ 1million in 2008 to $ 8.47 in 2018 i.e. 747% increase over the timespan of 11 years. Companies invest huge amounts of money in the tournament which attracts a large group of talented players around the globe. In many instances, it is seen that players skipped playing for their own country team because IPL dates clashed with international tournaments. Players are interested in tournaments because of the huge money rewards offered. For example, Chris Gayle skipped playing for the West Indies cricket team as he wanted to play in IPL. To tackle this issue, ICC made changes in their future tour programs and made the decision of?not to organize?any international matche during the IPL. When a large pool of talented players plays in a single tournament, viewers get addicted to watching them.?They love to watch a combination of different international players playing under the same team banner.??
These are the major reasons which I have found that made IPL a great success. Other reasons for the success of IPL includes?no competition for the tournament in India and different brand engaging with consumers during the competition. IPL has served what was demanded by the consumers and thus made itself a great success.?
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