Indian Premier League set to expand frontier to US market with fan parks
IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla has announced that the tournament will expand its horizon from the next year and will target the United States of America by using ‘fan parks’ as a vehicle of expansion. He has also added that the brand of IPL is increasing every year and one never knows when will it peak.
As a part of the initiative of taking the tournament to every city, BCCI has been organizing fan parks in those cities who don’t get to host any IPL matches and gives a chance to people to indulge in a bit of light rivalry and banter while watching it on the big screen. And as a matter of fact, this has been hugely successful as cities like Bhubaneswar, Kochi, and Rajkot threw up brilliant atmospheres which forced BCCI to organize more fan parks this season. Looking at the popularities of the fan park now, the BCCI has been contemplating to organize the same in foreign countries as well, so as to tap into the wider foreign audiences.
“In cities where we don’t host matches, we organize fan parks where we invite people to watch the match on the big screen. So 20,000-30,000 people are coming to the fan parks. Now we are planning to take it overseas, to places like Dubai, the UK and also America,” Shukla told AFP.
The Indian Cricket Board became richer than ever after the IPL bagged a massive Rs 16,347.5 crore ($US 2.55 billion) broadcast deal with Star Sports for a five-year period from 2018 to 2022. With it, the league has actually started to come closer to English Premier League football, who as per AFP, makes $11 million from broadcast revenues in the UK alone. IPL, at the same time, won a whopping $8.5 million in Indian television rights alone and has good reason to feel excited about the brand that is IPL now.
“We are not able to figure out where it (broadcast rights and sponsorship) will peak… but I think after the EPL, this is the most important league. It can match any league. The fan following and the viewers are increasing every year. In terms of revenue, it’s also doing wonderfully well.”
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