Poojan Shah

The title of article suggests there should be a comparison between the 2 sports but very safely ignore considering aspects of cricket in your argument. The 5 points considered by you: 1. Timezone, TV and the Internet - Timezone for cricket is always more favorable over football, TV & internet still show more cricket than football in India (SS1, SS2, SS3 all are dedicated to cricket to large extent; only SS4 is dedicated to football. Star Sports is obviously the most preferred network in India) 2. Football academies of Footballing giants in India - Ratio of cricket to football academies in India would very easily be above 100. Money & Professionalism are important but not enough to spread the game such that it overtakes cricket 3. Corporate interest in Football - Indian Cricket Series have always good responses from the corporates and ad rates during home & away series are very high. And obviously we all the money being pumped into IPL every year 4. Football Leagues are better Content - I dont think you have followed the changes made by Star Sports network for cricket enough. I dunno with Harsha Bhogle, Ravi Shastri, Shane Warne, Naseer Hussain, Alan Wilkins, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly cricket has dearth of quality in experts hosting analysis shows 5. It has become aspirational to be a Football fan - This seams like an argument just put in there to back the case for football without any concrete data I also need to add you have considered mainly IPL in your article with very minimal mention of Indian National Cricket team. I think you should have seen the crowds that came for ODI series vs Australia last October. You mention about cricket interest going down in last 3-4 years??? India won the 50- over world cup 3 years back and I dont think there was a single person in this nation which didnt celebrate that victory. P.S - I am not against the argument that football can overtake cricket but your reasons seem to measure only how football interest will go up without considering where the interest of cricket will go in same time frame.

22 Apr 2014, 05.40 PM

Sahil Dodhiwala

A piece of insight about Football I would like to elaborate on the content part. Watching the EPL in 2006 & 2014 has been very different. The sports channels have made conscious and continuous efforts over the years to educate the mass who has been far away from this game. From 2012; they started short fillers giving information about the clubs, the players and the transfer activities which has been very helpful in giving basic knowledge about the club to the new audiences. I believe this is what has given a much needed push to the EPL in India. Talking about I-League. Things have not gone their way since its inception. However, there still exists a strong base for local clubs. Marketing has hindered the growth of I League. Strong sports channels had already international content to broadcast leading to low I league television coverage. There was an instance in 2010-11 season where only Kolkata teams matches had been telecasted breaking the flow of audiences into the I League. Also, 2006 FIFA World Cup was very instrumental in grabbing eyeballs for football. Things started to go the EPL way and I league was completely thrown into ignorance after its launch in 2007 as audiences were busy getting a grip on the EPL. FotMob (an android based application) which has been giving score updates did not have the I league menu (since 2 years). I was surprised and felt good to see the I league update. I hope this gives I League the necessary recognition across international platform it deserves. - Sahil Dodhiwala

22 Apr 2014, 07.46 PM

pranav gupta

Cricket analysis and have a 3 year experience on studing sports marketing

You are just writing with half knowledge .in 2017 icc gave 110 countries T20 status and now cricket is again on the rise.reports shows that cricket has grown in usa,north America and Europe and after 2019 world cup win cricket has seen emmense youth membership. Now no time left in this headline"cricket and football are the most popular sport in the world with cricket rising popularity rapidly"

15 Apr 2021, 09.31 PM