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Would it be or would it not? The suspense around IPL Season 2 had almost assumed Hamlet-like proportions, thanks to the brinksmanship of Lalit Modi and P Chidambaram. Add to it the hyperbole generated by the Buchanan-Ganguly and now Gavaskar-SRK spats, the sudden cricketing aspirations of Preity Zinta, Juhi Chawla and lo and behold, Shilpa Shetty, even in an election year IPL has become the big tamasha the organizers probably wanted it to be anyway.

While the hype surrounding the event has only increased since the first season, what is commendable is the way the IPL has revolutionized the game through its marketing and branding efforts, matching the popularity levels of UEFA in Europe or NBA in the US. The uncertainties surrounding the event, the slowdown, missing players, the impending elections, security concerns and even the ultimate relocation to South Africa could not dampen the never-say-die attitude of the IPL and its eight teams.

Instead they have forged ahead with newer ways to market themselves, garner support and monetize offerings. And technology has played an integral role in helping the franchisees market their team better and has served as a light at the end of the tunnel. While the BCCI and the individual IPL teams have been using cutting-edge technologies to bolster team performance and training, what is more evident today is the increasing emphasis on the online and mobile mediums for external marketing. Technology has fully helped in exploiting the commercial aspects of cricket.

Cheerleaders were not just about skinshow; their dance synchronization involved managing multiple technologies

During the previous season the teams, for the first time, had embarked on distinctive branding and marketing strategies. Large sponsorship deals, advertisements, signature merchandise, contests and media appearances were all part of the deal. However, what was new to the game of cricket was that each team built its own website, monetized offerings, explored newer technology platforms and mediums to engage with the external audience. Concepts such as mobile communities, web 2.0-based social networking, and virtual fan clubs were deployed for the first time and they all won overwhelming response.

Franchisees saw this as the perfect platform to build their brands and reach out to the regional fan base better. This year, the features on the various team websites have not only increased but the teams are looking at providing the best web experience to the local fans in India. There is a serious move to create fans who will start spending time and money on the team brand, and then on advertisers brands.

Paray paray Lorbo Re
Leading the pack is the indomitable SRKs Kolkata Knight Riders which has not only revamped its website but added a slew of new features such as Fan Zone, KKR TV, KKR Academy, and KKR Store (a merchandize store) as well. To take the comparison with global sporting icons, KKR is going strongly the Manchester United way, it seems. It also has official presence on some of the largest social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Orkut. Not to count, a host of active unofficial communities it has spawned across many of these sites.

The team has also partnered with Zapak.com to create a social gaming network with a cricket-based gaming zone and contests. This online gaming community on the KKR website is one of the most prolific in terms of participation and feedback. The website also has a section named SRK Blogs which is still to be updated, which means SRK may go blogging as well to promote his IPL team.

Halla Bol, Warnie
Close on the heels of SRKs knights come the defending champions of the Rajasthan Royals. The Rajasthan Royals have the most complete and comprehensive website, which has a new addition of Fan Club, having its presence across social media with communities on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and SMS GupShup. It also has an active forum for discussions around the team called Halla Bol which is also the title of the team song.

The latest music video featuring its new co-owner and brand ambassador, Shilpa Shetty, was recently uploaded on YouTube and has received a large number of hits. The Mobile Zone feature on its website, and Rajasthan Royals Mobile Community powered by SMS GupShup, already boasts of over 25,000 members. Apart from these, the team recently entered into a three-year partnership with TCS, announcing the largest technology deal related to IPL. As per the partnership, TCS, which also works with the BCCI, will not only provide software support and analytical tools for the team to enhance its performance, but will also provide technology support to enhance viewer experience and provide statistical, user-friendly data in real-time over the web and mobile platforms.

Charging with a New Look
Deccan Chargers has made a strong online presence to support its marketing activities. The site has now been revamped to be in line with the teams new logo, logo colors and the new brand guidelines. That apart, its website would have additional features this season including an SMS GupShup group which already has over 23,000 members; and a Chargers Lounge section which has a graphitti board, a discussion forum, games, scores and other information feeds. Online communities across social networking groups have also been formed, though they are not as active as those of the other teams.

Not just online, mobile too has become a popular marketing weapon for all eight teams in IPL 2

The web and mobile platforms are extremely important in our overall brand building strategy. Specifically, both these online media would be used to keep the fans fully informed through news, blogs, photos, videos, scores, and stats; fully engaged through contests, games, chat rooms; and make the experience interactive by inviting feedback, views, opinions through contests and discussion forums, says Venkat Reddy, VP operations, Deccan Chargers Sporting Ventures.

IPL is embracing open source. The Deccan Chargers website has been built on an open source CMS platform called Drupal, implemented on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) stack and is presently the most popular open source content management system to build the community portals. The website also leverages on other appropriate technologies like Adobe Flash for interactive elements and widgets. The team has plans to introduce mobile applications that would also be available for download with rich interfaces.

Deccan Chargers is banking on its technology investments and is actively measuring the number of unique visitors on its website to evaluate the success of its marketing activities. During the inaugural season the total number of visits was close to half a million. The approximate registered fan base across our website and other online communities is in excess of 30,000 and growing, says Reddy.

It is Very Preity
The Kings XI Punjab team launched its website with content focused at fans. KXIPs mission this season is to bring the team as close to the fans as possible, so that they are more connected than ever before with the action on and off the field. Through the website and mobile, we are enabling fans to get access to exclusive KXIP content created especially for them, available nowhere else. For the first time ever, fans can go behind the scenes to be part of exclusive locker room moments, training sessions and even after parties, says the team spokesperson.

Cricket about to lock lips with glamor: Preity was not just a pretty presence, but Kings XI were active on the tech front too

The most engaging feature on the site is exclusive Made-for-Our-Fans content. This includes one-to-one interviews with key team members, opinions, pictures and video postings by players themselves on the team blog, a Cheer of the Match brought to fans by none other than Sreesanth, and regular guest columns written exclusively for the website. To engage fans on a deeper level, KXIP has built in a live chat feature where fans can talk one-to-one with their favorite team players.  Entertainment wise, KXIP online is choc-a-bloc with games, widgets, wallpapers, screen savers, polls, and contests.

Webchutney Studio, the web partner for Kings XI, has used open source web frameworks to enable faster web application development and deployment. The team has also partnered with Culture Mafia for providing WAP-enabled content and mobile marketing solutions. Like Deccan Chargers, the Kings XI web marketing team has also been tracking consumption patterns on its website. Last years Google Analytics numbers showed that fans were logging into the website from all over the world. Encouraged by this, the team has introduced a feature this year called the Global Fan Club, which indicates the location of the fan as s/he registers from a world location on a world map.

In the Fray
The Delhi Daredevils team has pretty much continued with the same features on its website as last year. It has an official partnership with Bigadda, which has a sizeable Indian audience, though the group on Bigadda is still to kick-off in a big way. This year the Delhi team has also formed an SMS GupShup community which has over 29,000 members. The Chennai Super Kings website, on the other hand, has a very well-updated blog and a fan zone on its websites. The team has appointed Hyderabad-based mobile VAS company, called NOWPOW, for creating the CSK mobile community and offer SMS update services and downloads.

The Mumbai Indians, owned by Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Industries, has not provided many interactive features on its website as compared to other teams. It just has a fan zone and a discussion forum with about 1,300 active users. The team has also not forged any technology partnerships and is managing all the website offerings and development through RILs internal IT team.The website for Vijay Mallyas Royal Challengers team is being powered by MSN India and is offering email ids to users. Last year the team partnered with TELiBrahma Convergent Communications to enhance the experience of spectators. The experience was extended to the audience who received real-time, match-related information on their mobile handsets within the Chinnaswamy Stadium during Royal Challengers matches.

When #1s Met: Indias #1 IT company TCS has become the tech partner for defending champions Rajasthan Royals

Tech Partners
This year TELiBrahma has extended its services to six of the IPL teams and not just exclusively to the Royal Challengers. With the IPL shift to South Africa, we are still in talks with the stadia in South Africa to offer BluFi Bluetooth service. If the tie-ups prove to be successful, the cricket fans at the stadium in South Africa will receive content related to the forecast of the match, pitch report, team composition, video clips, trivia and updates at every turn of the event during the match on their mobile handsets. We also intend to build a mobile fan club called BlueHive exclusive to the six teams that we have tied up with, informs Narasimha Suresh, CEO, TELiBrahma Convergent Communications.

The Bluetooth infrastructure would also provide a unique opportunity for brands to have an extended presence in the IPL stadium by branding the mobile content and match-linked information pushed to the handsets of the users at the stadium.

Just like TELiBrahma, another well known company, Sports Mechanics, has partnered with seven IPL teams to provide mobile based applications. While Sports Mechanics is the official training and sports analytics partner for the teams, this year it has forayed into technology aimed at fans.

We have come up with features such as Power Play, which is a video score card that is sent by email to the subscribers to the team websites. We are also offering mobile applications such as Free Hits and Cricket at the Edge, which provide replay features and customized messages related to the game to the users. We are able to generate such content because all our offerings are connected to our analytical platform called DeepPoint, says Ramakrishnan, CEO, Sports Mechanics.

As the chatter around the Web on the IPL increases, the fan traffic in each of team websites and the user consumption patterns will come to the fore. This will also be a time when the teams backend IT infrastructure will be put to the test as platforms and offerings have become more closely integrated this year. While, the web and mobile have served as low-cost, high-visibility platforms for the IPL franchisees, it will be interesting to track and see how the teams use their websites, deploy analytical tools to garner more support the coming season. And what more is in store for IPL Season 3 even as Steyn delivers the perfect leg cutter to Symonds.

Priya Kekre
priyak@cybermedia.co.in

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