IPL teams kick off online ticket sales

At a time when cricket fans are praying for India to win the ongoing World Cup, IPL franchise owners are busy finalising plans to sell tickets for the season four of IPL that kicks off from April 8.

Taking the lead, Chennai Super Kings has kicked off online ticket sales through its official website for the team's matches from today.

Similarly, the two new entrants in this IPL season, Pune Warriors and the Kochi team, have already tied up with KyaZoonga.com for tickets.

"Kyazoonga will be our exclusive ticket partner and the sale should start from Monday onwards," Kochi IPL Team co-owner Mukesh Patel said.

Rajasthan Royals that had surprised all by winning the inaugural IPL tournament in 2008 has partnered with Bookmyshow.com, the online portal for selling tickets.

"Tickets will be up for sale in the next week. We will keep them extremely affordable for the fans," Rajasthan Royals chief marketing officer Raghu Iyer said.

Each of the 10 franchisees will play at least seven matches and according to experts the ticket revenue will vary from team to team as it would depend on the stadia capacity.

"The capacity of the Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur is around 30,000 seats and tickets would be priced starting from Rs 200, Rs 500, Rs 1000 and going up to Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 for corporate and luxury bookings," Iyer said.

Experts are of the view that IPL will provide yet another opportunity for cricket fans, especially to those who missed out watching India's matches and also other crucial games in the World Cup due to unavailability of tickets.

This will also give franchisees ample opportunity to earn significant amount of gate revenues, they said.

"IPL matches will surely see interest from fans as a lot of people did not get to watch the World Cup live," Mindshare Managing Partner (Entertainment Sports Partnerships) Hiren Pandit said.

According to him, 80 per cent of the total tickets are with franchise owners and the rest are with IPL organisers.

For the franchisees, the gate passes are becoming a main source of revenue.

"Gate proceeds have become an important source of revenue and the money that franchisees make are from tickets is more than funds coming from local sponsorships," KyaZoonga Co-Founder Neetu Bhatia said.

She said revenues generated from tickets are directly proportional to the branding and marketing activities done by a particular franchise along with the performance of the team.

KyaZoonga is also the official ticket partner for the ongoing cricket World Cup.