Cricket, a noble sport popular in India and Commonwealth countries

Cricket has more than 1.4 billion fans worldwide, second only to football; the Cricket World Cup is the world’s third largest event after the Olympics and the FIFA Football World Cup.

In Commonwealth countries, especially India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Australia, cricket matches and cricket stars have attracted a lot of attention and are a hot topic.

Chinese brands such as Vivo and Oppo even offered sky-high prices to become the title sponsor of the Indian Cricket League and the Cricket World Cup, hoping to open up the product market in India and South Asia through the extremely high popularity of cricket events.

Apart from reports on the Asian Games, cricket matches have almost never appeared on Chinese television media, and there is very little information and introduction about cricket. Today, I will give you a detailed introduction to cricket, this aristocratic sport popular in Commonwealth countries, as well as cricket-related events and industry development.

The Cricket History

Cricket originated in the southeast of England in the 16th century. It was introduce to India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other places by British colonists in the 18th century.

In 1787, Marylebone Cricket Club was founded in London. This ancient but glorious club formulated the rules of modern cricket. It was not until 1993 that Marylebone Cricket Club handed over the right to formulate cricket rules to the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Marylebone Club has stood firm for hundreds of years, and in recent years the club’s museum has become a famous tourist attraction in London, attracting cricket fans from all over the world.

At the same time, as an aristocratic sport. The membership of Marylebone Club is very distinguished, and only male applicants were accepted before 1990. The club receives a large number of membership applications every year, but the number of awards is quite limited. Qualified applicants will be included in the waiting list. The shortest waiting time for new membership applications has reached 27 years.

Introduction to the Laws of Cricket

The standard cricket pitch is a circle with a diameter of 150 meters. In the center of the pitch there is a rectangular lane about 20 meters long and 3 meters wide. On both sides of the lane there is a “three-post gate” consisting of three pillars and two crossbars (see the picture below) .

The hitting ball has a cork core and a red leather outer layer, weighing approximately 156 to 163 grams.

The rules of cricket are relatively complex, but they are similar to those of baseball and softball.

Each cricket match is divided into two halves, the “attack” and “defense” sides. The batting side is the attacking side, and the bowling side is the defending side. The attacking and defending sides are switched in the first and second halves. Each team has 11 members. The attacking side only has two players (the batsman and the off-batsman), while the defending side has all 11 players (the bowler and the wicketkeeper stand in the lane, and the other 9 stand in the outfield to defend).

In each game, only the offensive team can score, and the defensive team cannot score. Therefore, you often see scores like 50-0 in cricket games. But don’t be surprised, it’s just because one team has not started to play as the offensive team.

Run: After hitting the ball, the batsman and his partner (secondary batsman) run to the other end of the lane, scoring 1 point;Four-run hit: The hit ball is not caught by the defensive team and touches the ground in the fairway, scoring 4 points;Six-run hit: The hit ball is not caught by the defensive team and touches the ground outside the fairway, scoring 6 points;

Although the defense cannot score in an inning, it can eliminate the offensive batsman in the following ways:

Caught: The ball hit by the batsman is caught by the opposing defense before it hits the ground, and the batsmanis out. Bowled: The ball thrown by the bowler hits the crossbar on the wicket and falls to the ground, and the batsman is out.Stumped: The batsman fails to hit the ball and his body leaves the safety line; the stumper behind the wicket catches the ball and hits the wicket, and the batsman is out.Run out: The ball is returned by the outfield defense and hits the wicket before the batsman reaches the other end of the pitch, and the batsman is out.

International Cricket Council and Cricket World Cup

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the international governing body for this sports. Thaat responsible for the administration of major cricket tournaments, including the Cricket World Cup.

ICC was founded in the UK in 1909. The International Cricket Committee has a total of 104 members. Including 12 principal members who can play test matches (England, South Africa, Australia, West Indies, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Ireland), and 92 associate members. The Chinese Cricket Association joined the ICC in 2004 and became its associate member.

ICC

For a long time after its establishment, the ICC was located at Lord’s Cricket Ground in St John’s Wood, London . However, since not all member countries have a “double taxation agreement” with the UK (that is, citizens of one country living in another country do not have to pay taxes to both countries at the same time), in order to protect the income of various cricket organizations, the ICC established ICC Development Pty Ltd. (IDI) in Morocco in 1994 to be responsible for all ICC’s financial transactions and business operations. However, the ICC staff were scattered in London, UK and Morocco, which brought inconvenience to the management of the organization.

Therefore, in 2005, after some consideration, the ICC changed its registered place to the British Virgin Islands, closed its departments in the UK and Morocco, and moved the entire organization to Dubai, where taxation is more favorable , and also closer to the emerging region of cricket – South Asia.

ICC’s main income comes from sponsorship income. More income from the transfer of broadcasting rights of the annual World Cup. Due to the popularity of the Cricket World Cup and competitions around the world. ICC has become one of the world’s highest-earning sports management organizations.

The first World Cup was held in the UK in 1975 and is held every four years.

Sponsors of the 2015 Cricket World Cup include Reliance, LG Electronics, PepsiCo, Emirates Airlines, Reebok, Castrol, MoneyGram International, and Hyundai Motor.

Indian Cricket

India is probably the country where cricket is the most popular in the world. Contributing more than a billion television viewers to cricket events. According to the survey data of the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India in 2017. There are 1.3 billion cricket fans in India. The Indian people love cricket more than you can imagine, and cricket stars are household names in India. The ” Indian Premier League (IPL) ” held from March to April every year. That can say to be a top sporting event in India.

Indian people have long loved cricket, which has great commercial value in the Indian market. However, it was not until 2007 that the Indian Cricket Board decided to establish the annual “Indian Premier League” IPL. Although the IPL has only been established for 11 years, the event has developed rapidly. The 2010 game was broadcast live on YouTube, which was also the first sports event to be broadcast live on YouTube . According to the latest report by valuation company Duff & Phelps, the brand value of IPL in 2017 was US$530 million;

In terms of audience ratings

The 10th IPL in 2017 achieved 1.25 billion views for 59 matches from April to May. The 2015 final between Mumbai FC and Chennai Super Kings had an average domestic audience rating of 6.4 in India. 49 million people from more than 20 million households watching the final (Broadcast Audience Research Council).

In terms of event copyrights

The IPL’s initial broadcasting rights were jointly owned by Sony Pictures Networks in India and World Spots Group. One of the top five sports brokerage companies (acquired by Lagardere Sports in 2015). The 10-year contract totaled US$1.026 billion, with Sony SPN responsible for television broadcasting business in India. WSG responsible for overseas copyright broadcasting.

After the ten-year contract between SPN and WSG expired. Star India, a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, purchased the global media rights for five years from 2018 to 2022 for US$2.55 billion. Including: IPL domestic television rights, domestic digital rights, and overseas rights.

In terms of advertising and sponsorship

IPL has also demonstrated great commercial value. As of 2016, IPL’s annual advertising revenue exceeded US$186 million. Sponsorship income is also very lucrative, attracting overseas sponsors such as Pepsi and Vivo.

It is worth mentioning that Chinese mobile phone brands Vivo and Oppo both regard cricket events as important advertising targets for developing the Indian market. In 2015, Vivo sponsored 2.199 billion indian rupees to become the main title sponsor of the Indian Premier League IPL. The latest sponsorship contract in 2018, the annual sponsorship amount will reach 420 million yuan. In addition to sponsoring the IPL Indian League, Vivo also obtained the sponsorship rights of the Indian national team for 5 years. Oppo sponsored the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

There are currently eight teams in the IPL. Among which the strong teams are Mumbai Indians (three times), Kolkata Knight Riders (twice), Chennai Super Kings (twice)

IPL Player Trading Rules:

1) Annual Contract Auction: During the annual contract auction, players set their own minimum contract price. The team with the highest bid wins the player’s contract. Players whose contracts are not sold can wait for a replacement contract.

2) Transfer period transactions: During the transfer period, with the consent of the players themselves. The two teams can trade players. The difference in the player transfer price will be share equally between the players and the original team. Transfer transactions cannot be carry out during the match period.

3) Replacement Contracts: At the start of a match and during the course of the match. Teams may choose to sign players who were not sold at the time of the auction.

In terms of player salaries, according to a 2015 survey by Sporting Intelligence and ESPN The Magazine. The average annual salary of Indian Premier League players is estimate to be $4.22 million. The second highest annual salary level in the world among tournament leagues. Players in the Indian Premier League only sign contracts with the team during the two-month competition period each year. The annual salary amount is estimate