Communicate.com Inc. dba Live Current Media Inc., a media company built around content and commerce destinations, announced that it will launch IPLT20.com tomorrow as the official site for the DLF Indian Premier League. As outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Live Current will become the exclusive online provider of content from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the DLF Indian Premier League. This signifies the first cricket-related content and distribution relationship by Live Current as the Company plans to build and launch its Cricket.com asset as the future cricket DestinationHub for cricket fans globally.
With IPLT20.com becoming the official online destination for the DLF Indian Premier League, fans from around the world will now have access to the 44 day long season starting tomorrow, April 18. The site will offer access to official league content including audio-visual, photographs, live scoreboards and summaries, match results, Fantasy Cricket, player interviews, profiles, schedules, statistics, ticketing and fan interaction through polls, contests and newsletters.
The launch of IPLT20.com enables businesses from around the world to access millions of cricket fans through advertising and branding of the official site. In the same vein as major sports media events such as the World Cup, the DLF Indian Premier League is predicted to be a major revenue generator, on track towards its target of $2 billion in its inaugural season through franchise and rights sales, advertising, sponsorships and ticket sales. Many global organizations have already come on board as various sponsors including Sony and the World Sports Group which have secured the global broadcast rights for over $1 billion and blue chip sponsors including PepsiCo, Hero Honda, Vodafone, CitiBank and Kingfisher have committed to the league.
“Based on our experience, we predict that the Indian Premier League will be one of the biggest sports and entertainment media events in the world,” says Andrew Wildblood, SVP of IMG, the official media and event partner for the IPL. “Having managed significant sports media of this size, we recognize the immense opportunity for IPLT20.com to enable passionate fans to connect with the content they want from wherever they are around the world, and for brands in India and around the world to gain visibility to this huge audience.”
The ten-year agreement outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding with Live Current includes extensive co-marketing and exclusive online content rights agreements for Live Current to build, launch and operate the official online destinations for the DLF Indian Premier League: www.IPLT20.com and the BCCI: www.BCCI.tv. The BCCI will be guaranteed on a combined basis a minimum of US $3 million annually and the IPL US $ 2 million annually through revenue sharing agreements including percentages of advertising, sponsorship and merchandising sales.
Lalit Modi, Chairman & Commissioner, DLF Indian Premier League, said, “I expect the site to extend the stadium experience of a cricket match to the worldwide audience of cricket fans at large. The www.IPLT20.com website is highly interactive and includes everything a cricket fan would need to get their daily, hourly and minute-by-minute fix.” Speaking specifically of the relationship with Live Current Modi added, “We chose to work with Live Current because of its vision of developing a consumer hub for that provides IPL fans globally with free and direct access to the play-by-play action and ability to connect with those aspects that they love about the game – from the international stars to the on-field action.”
In addition to today’s launch of www.IPLT20.com, Live Current is also developing the official web site for the BCCI: www.BCCI.tv. The BCCI is the largest cricket body in the world and represents all Indian cricket including the Indian national team. The BCCI site will be a premier sports web site, akin to Fifa.com, and will be the destination for India’s 1 billion cricket fans to get in-depth information about players and teams.
“Our team extends North America, the UK and India and is set on creating the most interactive environment for cricket fans worldwide to engage in the world of Indian cricket from wherever they live,” says Geoffrey Hampson, Live Current Media Inc. CEO and Chairman. “These partnerships represent enormous value for Live Current in the form of exclusive rights to IPL and BCCI content. The relationship is very strategic for us as we build a world class sports media business to serve the immense fan base for cricket.”
Live Current’s DestinationHubs integrates all aspects by which users interact with the Internet and the sport of cricket to discover more and get closer to the information they are passionate about in their daily lives. Today’s launch of IPLT20.com is the first of many sites to be developed by the new Live Current team, including newly acquired individuals formerly with Auctomatic. The Auctomatic team and developer, Ankur Nagpal bring extensive experience with social media and application development such as Fantasy Cricket on Facebook on the IPLT20.com site which will be fully leveraged across Cricket.com and other future Live Current destinations.