You can decide ICL team captain

The Subhash Chandra-promoted Indian Cricket League (ICL) refuses to stay out of news. Besides the ongoing spat between the rebel league and the big boy of Indian cricket, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the ICL’s selection process and its marketing plan are heightening the curiosity around the yet-to-be launched league.

In a presentation handed out to media planners, ICL has disclosed its selection process and many marketing tactics to build the league as differently from the BCCI as possible.

So it’s going to be SMS-based polls through which team captains would be selected while it gets telecast live on TV along with having a talent search drive across cities. Every team will play minimum of six matches and a maximum of seven during the tournament, all to be telecast between 7-10:30 pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

The tournament will be span a with multiple venues. ICL is in preliminary talks with Airtel and the Future Group for team sponsorship, besides a banking and automobile brand which are likely to sign on as keypartners. Although none of deals has been closed yet, say sources close to the development. The ground rights for the ICL are being sold by Zee while the channel sales will be done by Ten Sports.

ICL marketing plan has everything to lure brands. Quite literally. There are blimps, mascots, celebrities, flash mobs, road shows, brand films, music videos, albums and contests to create the much-required buzz around the league which aims to become the Indian version of the Super Bowl. The presentation further states ICL wants to build its corporate identity through an all India reach, sponsoring the coveted award and key cricketing assets.

The league also plans to create ‘space for sports’ through community service along with offering opportunities for local marketing and activation.

Still, there are some media planners who feel that aligning with ICL, which is like a rebel league against the BCCI, is somewhat risky as they don’t want to be caught on the wrong foot of the big boss of Indian cricket.

In fact, some of the biggest media agencies, while accepting the need of such a parallel league, have sounded caution to their clients and are thinking twice before putting their money in this Kerry Packer-like league.

The sponsorship costs is Rs 3.5 crore for four slots as the key partner, Rs 2.3 crore for six slots as team partner and Rs 90 lakh for eight slots as the official partner. The partnership costs are again divided into four slots for Rs 3.5 crore as a key partner, Rs 3 crore for six slots as team partner and Rs 1.5 crore for eight slots as official partner.

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