Teaching the Yanks a thing or two

I love The IPL. As an average Indian somewhere somehow cricket is a part of some yet to be identified strand of DNA in some chromosome in my body.
My Love for IPL springs not just from this gene but from the gene which gave me love for marketing.

Till the IPL juggernaut rolled the Yanks had claim for best effort in sport marketing, starting from concept selling, to endorsing merchandising they had done it all. Imagine getting a few clubs together and calling it the World Series. Yeah! the world lies in between the Pacific and the Atlantic stretching from coast to coast!! Include the Canadians, Mexicans and a few other Hispanics and we should be thankful they didn't start a Universe Series.

IPL, did not need the world prefix, Indian premier League was sufficient, the world comes to play here. Does the world see it on TV who knows and cares. The Indian TRP`s are itself mindboggling. Create some teams with filthy rich owners, throw in a few short skirts, the best of talent, loads of money and IPL is born.

Teams with less than creative names 2 kings, 2 claiming royal lineage, a knight, a war horse,a daredevil and a plain simple Indian combined together in bright colours. It was Bollywood meets India Fashion week meets cricket.

Boy was it packaged well, the models the starlets, the star owners it was one fancy Ramlila maidan after another across India. It was equally good as the bandwagon rolled to South Africa.

They threw Gandhiji out of a railway carriage we threw their whole world out of orbit. Blawdy Hell! Am told the whole country is still walking dazed. Imagine a stadium full of banners, hoardings and boards all advertising products which are not available and which in the near future will never be available in their super markets. All for a billion lying across the globe!

It was all about creating a product which caters to virtually everybody, the cricket lover, the sport lover, the fashion lover, the gossip lover, the voyeur. Package it all with bright colours and fireworks, reach the length and breadth of the nation and demand your price.
Voila! You have a Winner.

Yeah! IPL may have been waiting to happen, but we caught it by the scruff of its neck and made it happen. The yanks could never take their world series outside the US and expect to survive. They don't even dare to take it to Canada. IPL went to South Africa and is back here saying Hi! Missed you India!

That is what I call the power of a billion.