It was the summer of 1996. Coca Cola had just stunned Pepsi by outbidding them for the World Cup rights. Not to be outdone though, the latter blew officialdom to bits with its cheeky ‘Nothing official about it’ campaign that had top cricket stars — Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammad Azharduddin and Vinod Kambli — all endorsing Pepsi. Coke paid a hefty packet, but the sales skyrocketed for their rivals.

Ever since that cola war, the large corporates have fought ruthlessly over the best and most marketable names in the game. And when a tournament like the World Cup is round the corner, the action just amps up to a fevered pitch.
“The 2011 World Cup is the first one in the sub-continent since 1996 and everyone wants to make the most of opportunity,” says Latika Khaneja, who used to manage Virender Sehwag before the latter signed a five-year deal with Sunil Gavaskar’s sports celebrity management venture last October that is understood to be worth over `100 crore in the first three years. “The aim is to get as many eye-balls as possible — corporates who manage to garner the maximum win.”
But with the kind of sums that are being floated to get the cricketers on board to do the commercials, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the real winner is. PepsiCo’s ads featuring Mahendra Singh Dhoni discovering the ‘helicopter shot’ on a hay-cutter and Harbhajan Singh learning his doosra by flipping a cola can are just the tip of the ice-berg.
What’s about to follow is an onslaught of cricketer-centric commercials and marketing gimmicks that’s set to storm your TV set and the media beyond in the coming days. PepsiCo has already roped in Kevin Pietersen and Tillakaratne Dilshan for another set of refreshingly absurd ads similar to the one involving Dhoni and Bhajji.
Industry insiders say there’s going to be a 20-30 per cent jump in ads involving cricketers as the World Cup enters the home stretch. “This cricket frenzy will go through the roof when the tournament actually begins,” says one, adding, “There’s hardly going to be a minute in TV that won’t have a cricketer smiling back at you, coaxing you to buy a product.”
Sachin Tendulkar spent the better part of the last weekend on gruelling shoots at Mumbai’s iconic Film City. In New Delhi, around the same time, Sehwag and pal Gautam Gambhir were busy shooting a TV commercial together at the hallowed turf of the Feroze Shah Kotla.
There’s just a handful of days left before the teams start to arrive and the training sessions begin. Most of the Indian cricketers have already the milked the cash cow and signed multi-crore deals with large corporates. Those late to the party are just about keeping the night alive.
Sachin struck a three-year endorsement deal, estimated to around `20 crore, with Coca Cola last month and followed it up with two more deals worth `9 crore and `13 crore with Pune-based real estate company Amit Enterprises and apparel maker S. Kumars respectively. In the first 27 days of January, he earned a whopping `1.5 crore per day!
The three deals knocked off Mahendra Singh Dhoni from the top of endorsements pile. The 29-year-old Ranchi rocker had been charging `5 crore per endorsements, before landing the biggest catch. Last December, Dhoni signed a `26 crore endorsement contract with Vijay Mallya’s UB Group, making him the highest paid sportsperson for a single endorsement deal in the country.
Even Virat Kohli, whose place in India playing XI is not yet certain, has managed to earn a cool `90 lakhs per endorsement, making the most of hype surrounding the World Cup. But is it a wise move to pump in so much money on a tournament where returns can never be predicted?
During the 2007 World Cup, the companies had done the same thing: spent a lot money to sign cricketers and then resorted to carpet bombing advertising in the hope of improving sales. Pepsi had begun a blue billion campaign solely focused on “Indian Tigers” winning back the Cup for India.
Rahul Dravid’s men, however, crashed out of the first round itself, causing a fatal drop in public interest and TRPs. After the debacle, many companies including the likes of PepsiCo and LG India had then expressed concerns on the return on investments from a property such as the World Cup.
“Advertising during the World Cup is expensive. It’s a big risk that companies take — in this respect the IPL is a much safer bet because you know your set of players will at least play 80 per cent of the tournament,” says Santosh Desai, CEO of Future Brands. “The corporates have been far more prudent. There’s no Chak De-themed ads, no commercials asking the Indian team to win the World Cup — the patriotism bit has been abandoned for good.”
But even the cricketer-focused ads carry with it loads of risk. What if a player who’s the face of many brands gets injured just before the tournament begins? The biggest gamble of the last decade was taken by 7-Up just before the 2002 Fifa World Cup. It based its entire ad campaign in Ireland around the country’s captain, Roy Keane. The player was, however, on a plane home before the tournament even began and before anyone had a chance to buy one of millions of cans of fizzy drinks emblazoned with his face. “All you can do is hope that no big player gets injured and India reach the semi-finals,” adds Khaneja. “Many corporates would be keeping their fingers crossed.”
Market forces too have understood how World Cup compares to IPL. A World Cup 10-second slot is worth `3.25 lakhs currently while a IPL 10-second slot is being sold at `5.25 lakhs! Unlike the Twenty20 bash, there are far too many variables at play to assure a brand of assured returns in the World Cup. Will the players perform on the field? Will India make past the first round? Will the tired bodies of ageing stars last the distance?
Yet for an event that comes only once in four years and is billed as the country’s premier sporting spectacle, it could be even more unwise not to cash in on the rush — no matter how short-lived it may turn out to be in the end.

The B-world

In our country, cricket and the B-world have always gone together. Wait a minute. We’re not talking about Bollywod here. It’s the other B-world that we’re talking about here — the betting arena. With more and more sand emptying from the hour-glass counting down to the start of the cricket World Cup, the betting world in India is already abuzz with intense activity.
Says Ramesh (name changed), “Although the World Cup buzz has already started in betting circles, bookies in Chennai usually start accepting bets only two weeks prior to such big events. Such events draw a lot of first-time betters comprising mostly college students and youth, and the regular betters increase their stakes and the money they put into the matches. Also, while individual match betting will take place, the bet for the World Cup winner, also known as ‘outright betting’, will draw the biggest crowd.”
Prateek (name changed), an avid better in Chennai, says, “I’ve been into sports booking for about seven years now. World Cup events are filled with heightened tension and excitement because the stakes are always high. I’m a big cricket fan and will hooked to the World Cup, especially with India being touted as the favourites.”
In all the top international online betting websites too, India is stacked as the favourite to lift the World Cup this time, followed by England, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Australia. Says Atul Wassan, former cricketer and cricket expert, ”India being considered the favourites comes as no surprise. It is a combination of many factors — Dhoni’s leadership, a mix of youth and experience, our current form and home advantage.” And betting too, without a doubt, will see a steep increase, he feels. “Now that the tournament is going to be held here and also us being favourites, it would be foolish to think otherwise. Nothing can prevent it from taking place alongside such huge events.”
Legal or not, it is evident that the bookies and betters are in for a season full of activity, tension and excitement. Summing up the general feeling of the cricket enthusiast, Atul quips, “I only hope no match-fixing controversies crop up to taint the World Cup. Nothing feels better than a tournament played fair and square, irrespective of who wins it.”

Mohammed Waseem