Ever since T20 came onto the front stage and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) launched the IPL, cricket has been re-invented, re-positioned, and re-introduced to the public.
Cricket’s Transformation: Appeal Beyond
Now, cricket is no longer appealing only to the die-hard fans of the sport, the ones who are emotionally attached to the deep-rooted origins of cricket linked to their culture, or the ones who love the traditional form of cricket, in its pure transition from the past to the present.
It has gotten to be extremely appealing to a far wider fan base, not traditionally following or watching cricket matches.
The Birth of T20 Cricket
The new form of cricket has been dominating peoples’ interests, fans’ preferences, bettors’ choices, and bookmakers’, at Allbets.tv, offerings. A new form of cricket has been born.
That’s partly a success of the Indian Premier League, orchestrated by the BCCI into what has been classified as a blue ocean strategy. But let’s get things more clear before we speak about the BCCI’s strategy.
Domestic cricket has been traditionally played either as Test cricket or as ODI matches. And while these competitions had been settled with the origins of the sport, they were hardly ever popular amongst the non-fans.
Blending Tradition and Entertainment
Other sports around the world had not been so limited in their viewership – for example, football or basketball have always been appealing even to ‘non-customers’ or to people who would occasionally watch a game without ever being a great fan of the sport. This was never the case with cricket.
So, cricket needed something that would take it to the public and make it more mainstream and popular, even among the non-fans or the non-traditional fans. That something was eventually found in the T20 format, which allowed a shorter version of the very long Test cricket that would span for almost five days or even the ODIs which were to last for one day.
As we delve into the global cricketing landscape and strategies that redefine the game’s international appeal, it’s fascinating to explore the diverse leagues, each with its unique charm and significance, encapsulated in the rich tapestry of cricket leagues worldwide discussed further in another article.
IPL’s Monumental Success
T20 cricket was only for about 3 hours. Three hours of condensed cricket in a maximum of 20 overs. Three hours filled with thrilling cricket moments and excitement coming from aggressive, intense, and versatile games.
Three hours of top cricket players doing their best and giving exceptional performances. Three hours of mixing unprecedented value in watching a cricket game that is not only a game, but a fun and entertaining spectacle and an event that can evoke feelings unfelt in the sport.
Cricket was no longer boring or too long to follow and watch by people who were not core fans of the sport. Because, let’s face it, cricket was much about competitions that would last for too long and sometimes would end without even having a winner. This was not easy to consume by the average individual.
Impact on Betting and Revenue
More to this, cricket was no longer too complicated for people who wanted to support India’s greatest sport, but were not too much into long-lasting, slowly progressing matches.
Besides the fact that traditional cricket was addressing the hard-core fans, more than it was addressing the average fans, it was also that lasting for such a long time (Test cricket lasting for five consecutive days) made it rather difficult for viewers and spectators to engage or follow closely, even if they were willing to demonstrate their support for the biggest sport linked to their culture and history.
On top of all these, it was also no longer indifferent to bettors who would be largely attracted to wagering on T20 matches massively offered by online bookmakers or betting apps in India.
These people were non-fans or non-traditional, could-be fans of cricket, who under the right circumstances and the right format would be able to get enthused with cricket. Betting on T20 cricket became much more popular in the sports betting community and started being vastly preferred by punters in India (and everywhere else as well) to the point where cricket betting is now largely about T20 betting.
The BCCI’s Exceptional Achievement
Re-inventing cricket came as a result of IPL’s success and popularity. The success was, in fact, so huge that Twenty20 cricket was positioned not only as a shorter form of the sport, a revamped version but as an entirely new format that combined tradition, history, and entertainment through cricket – now, widely referred to as “cricketainment”.
Changing the Value Proposition of Cricket
The sports events would no longer be only about the match and the results, but also about music, Bollywood, star cricket players, and generally about bringing together cricket and entertainment and blending them into a whole new cricket breed that would be more consumable, easier to ‘digest’ and much more interesting to watch. The BCCI introduced a cricket that was fun to engage with, thrilling to view as an audience, and dynamic to bet on.
And just like that, T20 cricket became massively popular among Indians and the Indian Premier League became the absolute league with the highest viewership rate of all sports competitions in the country. The new cricket format and the successful IPL also triggered more betting in India, with the vast majority of sports betting sites reporting a spike in revenues during the IPL season every year.
The Indian Premier League is a blue ocean in the cricket world, re-inventing the sport and re-introducing cricket to the public in a very impressive way, to say the least. The Board of Control for Cricket in India has done an exceptional job in attracting the attention of non-fans or non-traditional fans and turning them into potential “customers” of the IPL product.
And it did so, by changing the value proposition of cricket and making it more about entertainment and experience than about the match or the result itself. It is a celebration of the sport, which manages to get everyone involved: from the fans of traditional cricket to the non-fans who have turned their attention to cricket and from the hard-core followers to the non-casual viewers who just wanna sit in front of the TV and watch an event that has everything.
