KEY POINTS:
Can Harish Thawani pull it off? The ex-adman-turned-entrepreneur has paid US$612 million ($883 million) for the right to broadcast all cricket matches played in India from 2006 to 2010.
That means his company, Nimbus Sports, which emerged almost from nowhere to snatch the rights, must rake in US$1.5 million for every playing day for five years.
Thawani has also launched a new TV channel that will be the world's first network to focus solely on the "flannelled fools" wielding bat and ball on a 22-yard strip. "We've forecast growth in the game. Our investors are happy," he says.
But Nimbus Sports isn't the only corporation in India that's pinning hope and big money on cricket right now. As the Cricket World Cup gets under way in the Caribbean, every company that can afford it is talking and breathing cricket.
So anyone who turns on an Indian TV channel is likely sooner or later to be confronted by the unusual sight of a busload of youngsters stuck in a Mumbai traffic jam. What do they do next? They get on to the bus roof and start a game of cricket. Soon enough, many others join this impromptu game. Suddenly the Nike Swoosh cuts on to the screen with the familiar tagline: Just do it.
Also in splurge mode is Pepsico India, which is putting really big bucks on the Boys in Blue (based on the Indian cricket team's blue outfits). It combined India's twin religions - cricket and Hindi films - by holding a mega-send off for the Indian team. The chief guests besides the cricketers were top Hindi movie stars Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra. In addition, it has launched a new cola variant called Pepsi Gold in time for the World Cup battle. Other co-promotions include the Bluebillion website (with Yahoo) where fans can sign on and send their best wishes to the team.
India may or may not have the world's best cricket team but it's the world's most cricket-crazy nation. Any corporation that wants to promote its products knows the smartest thing to do is put together a high-profile ad campaign and hire a cricket star or two.
So as India's players warm up for their matches in the West Indies, TV channels are choc-a-bloc with one cricket-based ad after another. In fact, there's a round-the-clock blitz selling everything from cola to motorcycles, televisions and mobile phones.
That's despite the fact that ad rates have soared 30 per cent and peak rates are hitting slightly over US$6000 for a 30-second spot.
One estimate is that Sony Entertainment Television, which owns the rights to the World Cup, could earn more than US$100 million in the next month. In contrast, the International Cricket Council will probably pull in more than US$200 million in revenues in the same period.
"We are spending a substantial part of our ad budget this year on the World Cup. Cricket still gets the highest number of eyeballs," says Girish Rao, vice-president of LG Electronics, which has been on a splurge as a big-time cricket sponsor for the past seven years. LG Electronics is one of the World Cup's official global partners - and that definitely isn't because Korea is a cricket-playing nation.
But as the World Cup rolls around once again, there's no question about India's off-the-pitch (read financial) dominance in the game. One estimate is that India provides 80 per cent of the audience and 60 per cent of global cricket's revenues.
And, as the Indian economy moves into overdrive, revenues are slated to rise swiftly. Thawani says: "With the economy growing at such speed, why wouldn't the price of cricket rights go up?"
Plenty of sceptics say he has overpaid for the rights. But he reckons US$612 million is cheap and that other broadcasters are now ready to bid even higher.
He could be right because sports channel ESPN has just dug deep into its pockets and paid US$1.1 billion for the right to broadcast all matches controlled by the ICC (which runs tournaments like the World Cup and the Champions Trophy) for the next five years. Five years ago, Sony Entertainment paid about US$550 million for the same rights.
The fact is that Indian advertisers are pouring cash into organisations like the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the ICC. The BCCI, for instance, has now struck deals for about US$700 million in the past year. The ICC, too, owes a large chunk of its revenues to India.
Why are advertisers willing to pay such huge sums to team their products with the country's top cricketers? The answer is simply that - in an era of hyper-competition - cutting through the advertising clutter is getting tougher than ever before. Also audiences can now choose among hundreds of channels at the flick of a remote and viewership is, therefore, fragmenting.
Cricket is one of the few events that can guarantee audiences.
LG Electronics certainly believes the high price of sponsoring seven years of cricket has been worth it. Rao says: "Sponsoring cricket is an expensive proposition. But seven years ago, it was essential to establish our brand in the consumer's mind in India. It has served that purpose for us."
The rush for cricket-based advertising has, of course, turned the top cricketers into millionaire heroes. Superstar batsman Sachin Tendulkar is the most sought after - being a great cricketer and an exemplary family man - and earns about US$5 million annually. Others like team captain Rahul Dravid and former captain Sourav Ganguly pull in about half that amount. And, of course, the team that win the World Cup this year will return home with a US$5 million bounty.
Will the flood of money continue? Or could it end in tears? It has been pointed out that several broadcasters around the globe have gone bankrupt after overbidding for sporting rights. But, as the World Cup begins, nobody in India is thinking about that. They are just waiting for the cricket calypso to begin.
