Women On The Front Foot: Hunting for a new opportunity
Janaki Merchant was always highly spirited about women’s sports. Whether it was the petition she had EVERYONE in her school sign to start her school’s first ever girl’s cricket and football teams or her outspoken advocacy in ensuring the girl’s college teams were being compensated equal to the men’s, she was always at the forefront of the women’s sports movement. Which is why a recent press release from the BCCI, the cricket body that governs the sport in India, was of real interest to her. They were looking at expanding the Women’s T20 challenge, and as both advocate and consultant, Janaki had spotted an opportunity.
For almost 6 years now Janaki had been a part of ITW’s sports consultancy wing and had worked on a variety of projects including restructuring a cricket franchise’s commercial and sponsorship structure and helping the Pro Kabbadi League build their social media presence. This project however was personal. The BCCI had just that morning released a draft prospectus inviting bids for a new franchise to be added to their Women’s T20 challenge roster. ITW and a couple of other firms had picked on the possibility of pitching clients of theirs or other investors to bid for the fourth team, which likely would pave the way for a full fledged women’s IPL, something that the sports community in India had been asking for quite a while. The event has been running for three years, where the first two years had just two teams playing a one off game. The 2020 season introduced a third team into the fray and this proved to be a grand success. It convinced the BCCI that there was room for at least one more squad in the challenge. The prospectus from the cricket authority was therefore a chance for various consultancy firms to create a deck that would elucidate the benefits of having another team in the tournament and more importantly create a pitch that could potentially entice an investor into coming on board with the tournament.
The thought of being part of a project that helps nurture and develop women’s sporting talent in India had Janaki energised. This brought back memories of her school’s cricket coach laughing at the prospect of having a girl’s team and she let out a wry smile before getting to work. However, she also knew this wasn’t going to be an easy pitch to make.
State of Women’s cricket in India: Cricket is played widely across the country and although majority of these players have been men, women have really made their presence felt in the field lately and have brought the nation many accolades. First set up In 1973, the women’s cricket association of India has massively contributed to building the profile of the women’s game nationally and internationally. From the first test being played in 1976, the women’s game has grown exponentially and the Indian women’s team currently finds themselves amongst the world’s elite.
Two back to back runners up finishes in the most recent T20 World Cup as well as the 50 over World Cup have left the women’s team on the cusp of a truly groundbreaking achievement. While a number of factors can be held responsible for the rising popularity of women’s cricket in India, one of the main reasons was the performance of the team in said T20 Cricket World Cup. The World Cup, which was held in Australia between February 21st and March 8th 2020, set a new record in becoming the most-watched women’s cricket event ever, as per a report by SportsPro Media. In a first for women’s cricket, matches were broadcasted by Star Sports in five languages- English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, with a growth of 39% in viewership reported, as compared to the previous edition of the same tournament. These are positive signs for women’s cricket and it gives the indication that women’s cricket is slowly getting cherished in the country in the same way as men’s cricket. After a highly impressive start in the tournament, winning their first three games on the trot, the Indian team fell short in the final to the hosts. A game that was watched by 86,174 people live at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and a further 53 Million viewers on television, both records for women’s cricket. This is the clearest indication of the vastly growing interest in the sport and the tremendous support that exists for our women athletes. So moving forward this is a trend that most expect to continue and with the Indian team constantly getting better, the potential is immense. Therefore the Women’s T20 challenge was a step in the right direction and expanding it further seems the logical next move.
Women’s T20 challenge: Originally started in 2018 the women’s T20 challenge was created with the intention of being the Women’s IPL and has been an annual tournament ever since. The first edition held in Mumbai in 2018 was a one of game between the IPL Trailblazers and the IPL Supernovas. The success of this event prompted the event’s hosts to expand the tournament further and include a third team, the IPL velocity for the 2019 edition. The inclusion of a new team propelled the Challenge to greater heights and the most 2020 edition saw astronomically higher viewership. The 2020 edition of the Women's T20 Challenge (WT20C) logged 5.34 billion minutes in viewership in India. That's a 2.45-times rise from the 2.20 billion minutes the 2019 edition recorded, with as many as 105 million unique viewers tuning into the three-team competition as opposed to last season's 71 million viewers. Viewers translate into sponsors and commercial revenue - and the BCCI was already calling the tournament “financially independent”. The question remained however as to whether it would be sustainable.
The Pitch: These last few years have added fuel to Janaki’s fire and the success of these tournaments have given her plenty of ammo to go about creating her pitch. Knowing how tough the investor sessions are, she needed to have all her selling points laid out perfectly in front of her. She knew some of the skepticism would take the form of questions such as “Who even watches women’s cricket?” Or “Why not invest the money somewhere else, like the stock market? Is there even any return in investing in a sports franchise?”. And she had to be ready for them.
Janaki felt strongly about uplifting the state of women’s sport in the country but she knew the importance of having these investors on board if she wanted to see the new franchise succeed. She had very little to go by except things that she had looked up from the IPL franchises. Nonetheless, she sat down to prepare the deck. The key question that was paramount in her mind as she opened her laptop was - what would make a compelling proposition?
[DISCLAIMER: This hypothetical case study is provided for illustrative purposes only and does not represent an actual client or an actual client's experience. The information in the case study is both factual and fictional. Opinions expressed within the case by the author are intended to stimulate discussion. The case does not purport to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation.]
EXHIBIT 1:
Based on the revenue model as laid out in the BCCI prospectus, the key sources of revenue for each franchise has the following three heads : 1. TV Rights (Broadcast Revenue) 2. Commercial Rights Revenue 3. Gate Fees and Merchandising Revenue
1. TV Rights - This is the payment received by the BCCI and the franchises from the broadcaster. This revenue is distributed between the BCCI and the franchises in a 50:50 ratio.
2. Commercial Rights - This refers to the sponsorship revenue received by each team and can further be divided into two parts - (i) Sponsorship revenue paid by central sponsors and received from BCCI (in a 50:50 ratio) (ii) Sponsorship revenue received from individual team sponsors, signed by the franchise exploiting the commercial rights.
3. Gate Receipts and Other sources: Additionally, franchises also have other sources of revenue such as merchandising, other commercial rights and licensing (TV programming, etc), etc.
EXHIBIT 2:
EXHIBIT 3: Social Media Following of India’s Women’s Team
Player Pre World Post World End of 2019 Current Cup 2017 Cup Final
Smriti Mandhana 30599 604011 1883967 8354000
Veda 147072 340362 468024 1306000 Krishnamurthy
Sushma Verma 149708 267608 375424 1376000
Jemimah Nill Nill 50,000 526,000 Rodrigues
Shafali Verma Nill Nill Nill 188,000
Harmanpreet 165169 453815 781160 3165600 Kaur
EXHIBIT 4: Cricket Viewership on Sports Channels
Year Viewership Impressions (in billion)
2017 17
2018 23
2019 31
2020 36
EXHIBIT 5: Typical Average Viewership Across Cricket Matches In India
Format Average Viewership (In Millions)
ODI 21
T20 41.4
EXHIBIT 6:
EXHIBIT 7:
Instructions and Evaluation Criteria
Round 1:
Participants need to submit a 2 slides / pages executive summary (PDF) of a pitch to an investor to get them to invest in the franchise. The participants are expected to study the business and environmental factors (social, economic and political) to come up with a compelling pitch. The submissions would be judged on the basis of the key value propositions presented in the executive summary.
*Naming convention of the submission should be the same as mentioned below.
Round 2:
The shortlisted teams would then proceed to the final round. The participants would be expected to prepare a presentation of up to 8 slides (excluding the title slide, appendix, and team slide).
The presentation would be evaluated on the basis of the depth of analysis of the business environment, understanding of the market, creativity in the proposed idea and financial projections to back up the proposition.
For any detail not specifically mentioned in the case, teams are advised to use their judgement to make assumptions.
Submission Format for Round 2:
1. Submission Format: PPT 2. Naming convention: