Cricket’s Indian Premier League gets under way today and provides a number of lessons on how sport and both new as well as traditional media are shaping up in 2013.
The League’s principal sponsor is Pepsi, in a deal worth €50 million, but it has also signed the Fox owned Star Broadcast Channel as a sponsor, despite the fact that the matches are broadcast on a rival channel.  This is a case of mutual coexistence brought to a conclusion that might only be possible through the fact that audience size for matches is around 200 million.
In social media terms the League will also break new ground with a variety of applications and features through twitter that could be adapted for use in other competitions such as the RBS Six Nations, All Ireland Championships, or indeed any competition where there is an audience looking for information.
Sport has become a major driver for Twitter which has its European headquarters in Dublin and will draw advertising revenues of over $500 million in 2013 and was yesterday forecasted to double that next year.
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[ismember]Among the different ways that twitter will be integrated as part of the 2013 Indian Premier League are:

  1. Team Hashtag Battles where supporters of both sides can compete in a virtual battle off the field of play to mirror that on it.
  2. Tweet counters through which the popularity of individual players, teams and matches can be measured to provide real time analysis of who is worth watching, and ultimately perhaps a real metric of who is worth investing sponsorship in.
  3. A Loyalty Corner through which supporters can either announce or even brand their twitter allegiance and avatar to one team or another.
  4. Official streams aggregating content from official teams and players to provide a one stop shop for fans.
  5. Formal integration with broadcasters as part on an on screen data stream.  This will be similar in many ways to the twitter wall seen in some reality TV shows and increasingly at conferences where the audience can see their own name and comments in lights.  An editorial perspective will ensure that only the smartest or the wittiest make it to screen, thereby in itself raising the level of online conversation.

The 2013 Pepsi Indian Premier League features nine teams playing 76 matches and will run through until May 26th.  It ought to be watched carefully for ways in which a time limited but intense competition can be brought effectively to life for large audiences and for the benefit of the sponsor. [/ismember]

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