IPL's where advertisers are flocking these days

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By Samidha Sharma

Week 1 and the IPL's looking very good. All the marketing hypes surrounding the DLF IPL has translated into eyeballs, at least for now the opening match between Bangalore's Royal Challengers and Essar's, Kolkata Knight Riders clocked rating of 7.2. While the Chennai's Superkings versus the Kings11 Punjab and Rajasthan Royals versus Delhi Daredevils saw a viewer ship dip to 4.5 and 5 respectively. These ratings are almost comparable to the 20-20 World Cup final and much higher than Subhaschandra's Indian Cricket League, which floundered with TRP s of less than 1 in its first 2 seasons. IPL officials expects ratings to remain high for the rest of the tournament.

Says Sundar Raman ; CEO, IPL, "Fabulous balling performance, close finishes, last over finishes. I think all theses are very encouraging signs and if there is a good game of cricket, we believe viewers will flock."

Ratings aside, team owners will tap into ticket sales to boost revenues. All matches except the one's played at Mohali and Hyderabad so far have been sold out and team owners say ticket sales for the season are picking up, subject of course to team performance.

Speaking on the subject, Charu Sharma ; CEO, Royal Challengers: The first few matches of the DLF IPL have gone extremely well and that along should bring the crowd back for every single match. Because now they know there is not just hype, not just marketing efforts, not just promotion, it's the game inside the field that is the final excitement. 

As more advertisers joined the IPL bandwagon to add to SetMax's list of sponsors, the broadcasters has already hiked ad rates to around 3-3.5 lakh per 10 seconds for the rest of the tournament.