Chronicling IPL's 433% brand value growth

On the 18th of April in 2008 people were glued to SET Max on their TV screens to get answers to the question, ‘Ye IPL hai kya?’. Back then, no one knew what a behemoth the property would set out to be. 

India being a cricket crazy nation was very comfortable in its position with a great Indian National cricket team with some of the best players. However, the BCCI pictured something even greater in mind. The aim was to take cricket beyond the Indian National team and to make people comfortable with the concept of club sports in India like football and basketball have been in Europe and the United States. This idea led to the creation of the IPL.

Cut to today, the total combined brand value of the IPL is a whopping 10.7 billion USD, says Brand Finance, a brand valuation consultancy. This is a 5x growth in IPL’s brand value which stood at 2.0 billion USD in 2009.

However, while we saw significant branding efforts from the BCCI and the broadcasters in the initial years of the IPL, we don’t see the efforts happening at such scales anymore. We take a look at how the branding efforts around the property have evolved over the past 17 years. 

Evolution of the brand ‘IPL’

The first five to six years were all about establishing the brand, says Prof Santosh K. Patra, chairperson - media, entertainment and sports business (MESB) department, and head of centre for media, entertainment and sports (CMES) at MICA.

During this time we saw a lot of efforts from the BCCI as well as the broadcaster towards establishing the concept of the league to the audiences. This period also included the inception of some of the most memorable IPL anthems like the Jhamping Jhapak.

Explaining the reasons behind the dynamic evolution of IPL’s branding efforts, Patra adds, “The first five years were about establishing the concept and the brand IPL. During the next five years, we saw franchises and teams build themselves and we saw a lot of branding efforts from teams like KKR, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. They were able to create their own micro brands.”

“However, in 2017 when Star won the broadcasting rights the focus of the tournament shifted from branding to monetising. So while the BCCI was able to establish the brand IPL, it was the broadcaster’s responsibility to monetise the property. This period saw Star building its entire portfolio around IPL and cricket and also led to the success of Disney+Hotstar,” he explains.

Lloyd Mathias, business strategist and independent director feels that IPL doesn’t spend on itself as a brand as it did five to six years ago and that is because IPL has become a regular part of our calendars.

“The brands that associate with the IPL also do the most of branding for IPL as well as themselves. It is a natural evolution given the heights of popularity that the IPL has reached."

"Another factor that has come into play is digital. Today a lot of marketing efforts for the IPL are seen on digital instead of television which is where a lot of money was spent,” he adds.

What’s next?

As per experts the evolution of the brand IPL is directly related to a number of factors like the broadcasting rights, title sponsors as well as advertisers.

Joy Bhattacharjya, CEO at Prime Volleyball League feels the IPL is so big that they don’t feel the need to push the brand anymore. Giving an example of how the splitting of IPL media rights impacts the brand, Bhattacharjya explains, “The mighty property has been split between linear and digital and both of them are trying to garner as much viewership as possible. Instead of the brand, the broadcasters are now spending money on reaching new audiences.”

According to him, the media players are focusing their strategies on acquiring newer users and converting them into their respective audiences. This is why we now see IPL in Bengali, Bhojpuri and Punjabi commentaries.

“Sony and Star were building the brand IPL because they owned all the rights which is not the case anymore,” he asserts.

He further adds that the merger of Reliance’s Viacom18 and Walt Disney’s Star India will greatly impact the positioning of IPL in the coming few months.