The
Chief Operating Officer of the Indian Premier League, Sundar Raman, has
advocated the introduction of television commentary in regional
languages to spread the reach of cricket in the interior parts of India.
"To
me, we take India as one large mass of audience,” Raman said. “Cricket
today is experimenting and there is a big opportunity. If you look at
regional channels, they are doing reasonably well. There is no reason
why you cannot hear sports commentary in Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil
or Marathi. To me, that is another opportunity to expand cricket's fan
base," he said.
Besides
cricket, Raman also touched on matters concerning other sports in India
and said that it is important for them to market themselves well to
make an impact on the Indian public.
"Every
sport needs to market itself well. We are a one-sport country and that
is possibly because 'cricket' has marketed itself well. I was delighted
to see the Hockey India League coming on television," he said.
However,
the IPL COO advised other sports against fiddling with their formats
just to join the advertisement bandwagon. "Cricket is an
advertiser-friendly sport,” he explained. “On the other hand, the format
of football is such that it does not suit advertisers. My fear is that
it should not lead to tinkering of the format, which is not in the
interest of the game," Raman said.
With
a decade-long experience in advertising and marketing, Raman feels
broadcasters should look for different means of revenue generation
rather than depending heavily on advertisements.
"As
long as one source of revenue is the only source of revenue, you will
be playing into the hands of power brokers. That will lead to a downward
spiral," he said.
"The
amount of money a broadcaster gets for subscription revenue in UK, US
or even in South Africa or Australia, when compared to that in India, it
is really small. It is pittance," concluded Raman.