Mumbai: The Woman’s Premier League (WPL) first match was on 4 March, 2023 between the Gujarat Giants and Mumbai Indians. Viacom 18 acquired the WPL rights for a sum of Rs 951 crore, but is the environment conducive enough for advertisers to invest in the WPL 2023? Advertisers have already earmarked spending between Linear TV and Digital for the high-impact IPL 2023.
BCCI has announced free tickets for women enthusiasts and also unveiled the WPL anthem digitally. Though there is excitement building around WPL, advertisers are in a wait-and-watch mode. The free tickets to women and nominal charges for men by BCCI are to make sure that this year there will be momentum for the matched. All the matches are going to be held at Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium and Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium, this leaves the rest of the states from participating in the first-ever Woman’s Cricket IPL.
Indiantelevision.com spoke to Karan Taurani, SVP at Elara Capital, on the WPL, the initiatives by BCCI and what are advertisers thinking about investing in this year's WPL…..
Taurani says, “The strategy that will make sure that this content reaches the masses in a big way. BCCI can provide free tickets and this saves crores of rupees on promotions”
He goes on to add, that nearly 80-90 per cent of revenue for the franchise is from media rights, the giving away of free tickets will not dent this and it will build awareness and more people especially women will come to the stadiums to watch the matches. There are other avenues of revenue for the BCCI in terms of F&B, in-stadia advertising and other tie-ups.
On the question of what would be the 10-sec rates for the WPL, Taurani says, “the rates will be anywhere between 60,000 – 70,000 as compared to 14-16 lakhs for the Men’s IPL. Also this year the environment is a little tough and many new age companies and start-ups who spent large amounts last year on IPL have decided to cut their spends even for the men’s IPL’’.
Taurani says, “WPL depends on Star players to drive eyeballs and this will eventually increase ad spends. If this season WPL throws up a few star women cricketers, it will be a success, but it is a long way for WPL
