Empty seats in sport = cricket

I've written about this before.

The problem with cricket, as evidenced by the collapse of the World Cup after India got knocked out early, is that there are not enough viewers outside of India.

Viewers who receive brand messages and buy products and services.

And there are not enough fans. Fanatics with undying loyalty to the team -- which will cause them to buy products that the team's sponsors manufacture.

And if cricket continues in its current form, brand money will look at other sports.

The following, an extract from an article in The Sun on last night's friendly between England and Brazil, is most telling:

"Terry had called on the fans to help make the new Wembley a fortress.
But the prawn sandwich brigade will have to get their act together for the important qualifiers later in the year.
When the second half began, there were swathes of empty seats behind the dugouts, as the corporate crew tucked into their champers and finger food. This will not do. What do they think this is? Test match cricket?"

How the mighty have fallen. This is how one talks about cricket in England.

And on another note, what a superb headline in The Sun, drawing attention to David Beckham's return to International football and his role in the 1-1 draw:

"It's Beck to the future", screams the banner.

India breaks record: 1,2,3 and 4 score centuries

Maybe it’s only against Bangladesh, but for the first time in test cricket history have batsmen 1,2,3 and 4 (Karthik, Jaffer, Dravid and Tendulkar) scored centuries.

This is no lie or damned lie, it is a statistic.
And please remember, after their performance in the World Cup, Bangladesh are no longer minnows.
Numbers 1, 2 and 3 have done it 7 times in test cricket… including the Indian trio of Gavaskar, Srikkanth and Amarnath.

Another statistic? The record has been reported here before it has been reported anywhere else in the whole www.

As you can see, I'm not exactly busy this Saturday morning.

Gavaskar: no more my idol

Sunil Gavaskar’s gone nuts. To quote an example of an Australian cricketer (who’s memory I won't tarnish by naming) who died in a pub brawl and use that to show how badly behaved Australian cricketers are is the closest to a brain dead statement I have come across from any human being that one thought was intelligent.
And an individual that I greatly respected.

He can do the right thing, and apologise. Or do the wrong thing, and not apologise.

And cease to be an idol to people like me.

Of the ICC World Cup, and of "minnows"

Now that the ICC World Cup Cricket has got off to a start, and a few matches have been played, a few questions:

Isn’t the ICC worried that the word “minnows” has been used so often on TV, print and the web?
Isn’t the ICC worried that the stadium was half empty even for the West Indies match?
Isn’t the ICC worried that the viewership even in India (according to aMap) thus far has been so negligible as to not even remotely affect ratings on other channels?

Has the ICC’s evangelism caused the popularity of the World Cup to regress rather than gain?

The ICC World Cup, Commercials, the Internet and call to action

Interesting, the number of commercials which highlighted a web address or had a call to action. The ones listed are those which aired in the first half of the game, when the West Indies batted. I guess it’s enough to call it a trend.
Commercials include: Nokia (http://www.nokia.co.in/), Candyman (http://www.mycandymanclub.com/), The Mobile Store (http://www.themobilestore.in/), Maruti Zen (http://www.marutizen.com/), Hyundai (http://www.hyundai.co.in/), Motorola (http://www.hellomoto.com/), Mountain Dew (http://www.dewdares.com/) and TVS Apache (http://www.nowornever.in/) .

http://www.monster.com/, http://www.licindia.com/, http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/, http://www.99acres.com/ and http://www.clickjobs.com/ ran no spots but bought supers and interstitials.
The blue billion contest, where there was a call to action to http://www.bluebillion.com/ or an SMS to 2525 just disappeared off the screen.

Other decent Call-to-action efforts included Kotak’s 8558 insurance super and Luminous 6161 highlight. Hutch exhorted viewers to dial 123 to receive their horoscopes. Cool. Not.
Thomas Cook asked me to SMS "Europe" to a number I couldn’t catch. BSNL had a toll free number that viewers could contact.

Those who didn’t attempt to send traffic to their websites include Gilette, Thomas Cook, BSNL,Airtel, Mayur, Luminous, NECC, VIP (innerwear), Sony, Sprite, Pepsi, Kingfisher (water, dummy), McDowell (soda, dummy), Hero Honda and Videocon. And the one that surprised me the most? Aditya Birla Group.

2007 cricket world cup Trivial Pursuit

While all the MSM will be full of all the predictable stats, I thought, since I’m a cricket freak anyway, I’d track records and landmarks which all of us in media and advertising could find more useful than the strike rate of Brian Lara.

Like, the first commercial AFTER the batsman entered the ground, but before the first ball was bowled, was that of Videocon.
The first commercial AFTER the first ball was bowled was Pepsi’s.
The first ground runner to be hit by a ball was a Hutch board.
The first tech goof was from the very first ball till the 13th ball (not counting extra deliveries), during which period commentary was completely absent.
The first inadvertent editing of content was in over 6.1, when a commercial ate into the delivery.
The first surrogate liquor ad was McDowell No 1. Soda, of course.
The first commercial to be truncated due to the editing was the TVS Apache commercial.
Six of the first eight bundaries hit Hutch signage, with Pepsi host to the other two.

Yeah, I like Trivial Pursuit