Sun TV holds competition for choosing a name for IPL team

Offers Rs 5 lakh to winner

Media tycon Kalanithi Maran-owned Sun TV Network (Sun TV), the new entrant of the Indian Premier League (IPL), today announced a contest, for selecting a name for the new Hyderabad IPL Franchise. The winner will get Rs 5 lakh, said the company.

On Thursday the company won the bid to take over the Hyderabad franchise for Rs 85.05 crore per year, putting an end to the process of form a new team after BCCI scraped cash-strapped Deccan Chargers.

Sun TV won the Hyderabad Franchise for an amount of Rs 85.05 crore per year. This Franchise fee represents a premium of over a 100% above the amount paid by DCHL for the Hyderabad Franchise in 2008. The Network bid was higher than the second bid of PVP Ventures, which was Rs 69.03 crore,"

Meanwhile, on Sunday Sun TV put out an advertisement in its web site, stating “Win Rs 5 lakh by choosing the name for Sun Network's IPL Cricket team”. The name should include the World Sun. The deadline to send the name through SMS is October 28, 2012, said in the advertisement.

Earlier the company said it is into the business of media and entertainment. Cricket is possibly the largest entertainment in the country, in terms of sports. The BCCI has issued a tender for 12 cities; two of them were in the south — Kochi and Hyderabad. So we made a bid for the Hyderabad team,said V C Unnikrishnan, chief financial officer of SUn TV.

In Andhra Pradesh, Sun TV already has a strong presence with its Gemini TV.

“This will possibly add on a little more brand image, but we may not be looking at getting into any Hindi space. Definitely, IPL is a bigger franchise compared to a radio station. But we already have a presence in radio and the Sun Group is known through the radio stations there. This will add much more visibility and focus,” said Unnikrishnan.

He added IPL was a value creation at the end of the day. On the company’s ability to run a cricket team, Unnikrishnan said they had a variety of businesses in which the company had excelled.

“We have ensured that our toplines definitely grow and we also add to the bottomline. Value addition for shareholders has been kept foremost. If you look at our numbers, despite last year being a little bad, our numbers are still strong amongst the other players. We have a very high payout ratio in terms of dividend ratio. This will slowly augment the outcome in the long-run,” he said.

Apart from around 30 television channels, Sun TV has radio stations such as Red FM and Suryan FM. The group has 46 radio stations across the country, of which 18 are in the south. The company has presence in north India through the Red FM brand.

Kalanithi Maran is the owner of the $2.8-billion Sun Group, Forty-eight-year-old Maran is the son of former Union commerce minister Murasoli Maran and elder brother of former Union textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran. According to Forbes.com, Kalanithi is currently 24th in the list of richest Indians.

An MBA from the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania), the media tycoon from Chennai has diverse business interest from owning TV channels, Tamil newspapers, DTH business, movie business and also in aviation through SpiceJet airlines.