MUMBAI: Even as the buzz around the India-England series gets louder in anticipation of Sachin Tendulkar's 100th ton, the official broadcaster of the series ESPN Star Sports (ESS) expects to rake in around Rs 200 crore of advertising revenue from the tournament. The series, which starts July 21 with the first test match at Lord's, the 100th between India and England, is the first big tournament with the full World Cup winning squad.
ESS has got on board Tata Docomo and Tata Steel as the presenting sponsors while Nokia, Pernod Ricard, Maruti, Epson, Reliance Communications, ICI Paints and Panasonic are the associate sponsors for the tournament.
Media planners said the tournament which has grabbed headlines for milestones like being the 2,000th test and the 100th between England and India besides the Master Blaster's expected 100{+t}{+h} century, is likely to benefit from the hype but there is still a lot of inventory left unsold.
"There are a lot of conversations which are still going on. Advertisers will not buy a spot just because of the media buzz that has been created in anticipation of Tendulkar making history," said a head of a media buying agency who did not want to be named as talks with ESS are currently on.
India plays four test, five ODIs and one Twenty20 match against England between July 21 and September 16. "With the ODIs starting in September, the beginning of the festive season, there is going to be a spike in interest as most big campaigns break during that period," said Punitha Arumugam, CEO of Madison Media.
Nandini Dias, COO, Lodestar Universal, the media agency which has bought advertising spots for Tata Docomo and Tata Photon said, "We wanted to put our money on the India-England series as it has a sense of tradition attached to it and now the hype should hopefully add to the interest."
Media planners told TOI that ESS has asked for Rs 75,000 per ten seconds for test matches, Rs 3 lakh per ten seconds for the ODIs while the one-off Twenty20 match has a price tag of Rs 1.5-1.75 lakh for a ten second spot. This is the first cricket tournament for ESS after the huge success of the ICC World Cup earlier this year. "Even test matches have been welcomed by advertisers which is evident in the number of sponsors that we have been able to sign on. Infact, we are almost sold out for ODIs with another 45 days still to go before the ODIs are scheduled to be played," claimed Sanjay Kailash, executive VP - Ad Sales & New Media, ESS. The broadcaster has timed the launch of its two new HD channels, ESPN HD and STAR Cricket HD, with the India-England series.
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