Star India hits pay dirt with kabaddi

Big brands and big stars put their muscle behind the Pro Kabaddi League that goes on the floors tomorrow

The Star Sports Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) is up against a slew of expectations as audiences and advertisers gear up for the second season, commencing this Saturday. While Star India network, which lent the Star Sports brand for title sponsorship last year, has retained its involvement, around eight sponsors have joined the bandwagon this year. Some of the associate sponsors include TVS Motors, VIP Frenchie, Bajaj Electricals and Flipkart. Even FMCG players like Britannia have signed up.

The league championed by commentator Charu Sharma saw an unexpected level of success last year, with 435 million television viewers in its one-and-a-half month run. Nitin Kukreja, Head, Star Sports, said, "We are committed to reinvent kabaddi and set it in today's context. The task is to make the game relevant and aspirational for the millions of young and passionate fans. Our objective is to make it bigger and better in terms of quality of play, broadcast and reach." For starters, the tournament will be available on eight channels in the Star Network, as against three last year. While 2014 saw a chunk of viewership coming from the Hindi language channels, the broadcaster hopes to go deeper into regional territories with a five language feed - English, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Marathi. It will be telecast in 109 countries across the world. The packaging has also been ramped up with animated mascots for each team accompanying the graphics and player stats on a big screen.

In fact, the success of the PKL has built confidence in non-cricket sports. "Several leagues have mushroomed recently following the IPL's success, namely, Indian Badminton League (IBL), Indian Super League (ISL), Pro Kabbadi League (PKL). Apart from these, there are other stand-alone events that take place every year.

Two international level badminton tournaments that are hosted in India every year: Indian Open GP Gold and Indian Open Super Series, Chennai Open (ATP Tournament), etc. All these are quite popular," says Vishal Jaison, co-founder of Baseline, a sports marketing company.

However, the Hero Hockey India League (started in 2012) and the IBL failed to get the eyeballs while the PKL and Hero ISL have been runaway hits. While in case of the PKL, all the stake-holders decided to forego monetisation and focused on brand building and organisation in the first year, ISL had Hero on board with a three year title sponsorship deal valued at Rs 55-60 crore from the first year. Associate sponsorship was between Rs 4-6 crore.

The rates are what make the non-cricket sports leagues even more appealing to advertisers. For example, for IPL, Pepsi shells out more than four times what Hero does for ISL. Similarly, associate sponsorships at IPL are between Rs 25-30 crore a year. Star India had signed up for on-ground associate sponsorship in the IPL, forking out Rs 100 crore over three years. Jaison says, "Although India has primarily been a cricket loving country, other sports are catching up."

PKL GETS BIGGER IN SEASON 2

• Number of players increased from 14 to 25 per team, with international players from Iran, India’s closest competitor on the global stage, joining in.

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  Every match will start with the rendition of the national anthem by a popular artist. The first match has superstar Amitabh Bachchan singing it.
• Bachchan has also recorded this year’s campaign song ‘Le Panga’ and features extensively in the campaign.
• Tie-up with the Swacch Bharat Abhayan to promote cleanliness.

What do brands look for in such leagues? Sunil Pathare, vice-chairman and MD, Maxwell Industries (the company that owns the brand VIP Frenchie) says, "While cricket will always be religion in India, it's also a very expensive investment. For us, kabaddi was the choice simply because it managed to get the eyeballs in the right TG and is priced right. We have signed up for a year, but look forward to renewing the contract."

It's not only on the broadcast medium that advertisers now have multiple sports to choose from, but also on ground. With each league, the number of franchises goes up, increasing the options available. And across sports, there are as many as 45 to 50 teams to partner with. Besides, PKL and World Kabaddi League (another kabaddi tournament with spans India, Canada, UK and US) come at around Rs 50,00,000 a year while leading IPL teams charge Rs 25 crore a year for principal sponsorship.

While success has been phenomenal, experts warn that it is still early days and non-cricket sports will have to play with lower ticket sizes for the time being. However, as an industry, there has been an awakening that sports beyond cricket also sell, and sell well.