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Cricket: Big spenders at the crease

V Krishnaswamy

The cash is pouring onto the cricket pitch in ever-increasing quantities. ESPN Star Sports has ensured a long stay at the crease by forking out a rumoured $210 million to $220 million.

That buys it the rights of all the Test and one-day matches in eight out of 10 Test-playing nations till 2007.

Also out at the crease is Sony that trumped its rivals with a giant cheque for $255 million. This big hit over the boundary means that Sony has the rights for the next two World Cup tournaments and the two ICC Trophy events.

Sony and ESPN Star Sports have snared the biggest prizes. But there are other channels that are also fighting for the attention of cricket fans on the small screen.

There is, for instance, fledgling TEN Sports which has the rights to cricket in Sharjah and Morocco - which are emerging as neutral venues in a strife-torn era.

TEN's owner Abdul Rehman Bukhatir controls both the channel and the tournaments but he must be hoping to make some money from its telecasts in Sharjah and Morocco.

Don't forget about our national broadcaster Doordarshan which has its lens focused on one gigantic prize that it owns - the rights to all international cricket in India.

Back in 1999, Doordarshan paid about Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) to telecast cricket matches played in India till 2004. Between these four channels, there will be around 1,600 days of cricket showing on the small screen over the next five years.

Cricket is in the little league when compared to the big kickers on the football field. But the money being forked out by these channels is quite amazing considering that only a handful of nations follow the action on the cricket pitch.

Remember there are only 10 Test playing nations. There is, of course, a tiny expatriate audience in countries like the United States.

So, how much will be spent on telecasting cricket in the next five years? A rough estimate would be slightly over $500 million.

Add to that the running costs of showing all these matches. That means that the channels are probably planning to spend about $700 million - and they must recover this from advertisers just to break even.

How will these high-spending channels get their money back? That's simple: from the cricket-crazy Indian market. So, does the market have that much money to spend on the cricket pitch? The answer is yes and no.

Yes, there will be money for events like the World Cup, which is a quadrennial affair - even though it is a bit long and lasts for about six weeks - and the ICC Trophies, which are 12-day affairs every two years. The World Cup events are hot favourites with advertisers and sponsors.

When Sony put up a whopping $255 million for the ICC properties, which by calculations will last 153 days over the next five years (that includes some of the smaller tournaments like the under-19s), it naturally expected the World Cups would bring in most of the money.

Of course, there will be additional costs for the extras like hiring Kapil Dev as their brand ambassador.

Doodarshan because of its sheer reach, and despite its obvious sloppiness, still attracts big enough sponsorships. TEN despite being an infant is an aggressive player, and so can be expected to take at least a thin slice of the advertising pie.

So, where does that leave ESPN Star Sports, which has just signed up Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador. It has the rights to 1,108 days of cricket over the next five years.

One would reckon that ESPN Star Sports had little alternative but to take this gamble and make up for the obvious disappointment at not being able to get the World Cups. Notwithstanding the marketing muscle of ESPN Star Sports, they will be hard-pressed to recover or make profits.

Potential sponsors are looking in other directions - and showing an increasing interest in other sports like Formula 1, golf or blockbuster events like the Olympics and the Asian Games - so cricket may not get as much money as it used to. And breaking even will get tougher as the rights fees keep climbing.

All in all, the sky-rocketing TV rights fees could actually endanger the existence of the channels, as it has done in the case of football in Europe. That in turn could mean that there will be less money in cricket in four or five years time, or, perhaps even sooner.

Over the next five years ESPN Star Sports will have 1,108 days of international cricket in its bag, Sony has 153, Doordarshan about 150 and TEN about 100. That works out to between 1,500 and 1,600 days of cricket over next five years. What's more, most of this programming is repeated at least once, if not more.

That works out to 600 days of either live or repeat cricket telecasts each year. Split over five channels, it means cricket for more than four to five months every year on each of these channels. God, I already hate cricket.

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