MUMBAI: Even though football is not considered to be a revenue generating game for broadcasters due to its limited scope to append advertisements, Ten Sports has managed to attract as many as fifteen brands across categories for the finale of the UEFA Champions League.
The much-touted finale will be played between Spanish La Liga Champions Barcelona FC and Italian SerieA triumphant Juventus in Olympiastadion Stadium, Berlin on 6 June.
Brands like Micromax, Xolo, Amul, Vini Cosmetics, L'Oreal - Garnier Men, Adidas, TVS Motors, Parle Agro, Amity University, Nissan, Sharda University, Accenture, Park Avenue, Urban Ladder and TVS Tyres are already on board.
Ten Sports senior vice president and marketing head Prasenjit Basu informs Indiantelevision.com that apart from these, many more brands have shown keen interestin associating with the final. “However, I doubt we can accommodate all of them with limited inventory left,” he says.
A media planner, who closely deals with the sports fraternity adds, “Football is not considered as a high revenue generating sport as there are not much room to showcase advertisements because of the continuous nature of the sport. However, in a match of such magnitude, the prime time begins 20 minutes before the match, which otherwise is always two minutes before kick off. And subsequently a huge number of brands get associated with the event to grab eyeballs.”
The UEFA Champions League final is one of the greatest matches in club football history and with the 2013 final drawing a record of 360 million television viewers globally, it comes as no surprise that multiple brands are vying for an ad spoton it even if it means paying a premium.
Given the high demand, Ten Sports is said to be charging as much as Rs2 - 2.75 lakh for a 10 second slot in the final. The premium rates are also owing to the sport’sgrowing viewership in India.
A media expert opines, “It’s a battle between defense and attack. Juventus will defend while Messi, Suarez and Neymar will try their level best to score for Barcelona, which makes the final a highly interesting one. So the ad rates going up is normal for such an event because everyone will try to buy a spot and grab eyeballs.”
Talking about the network’s special plans for the finale, Ten Sports CEO Rajesh Sethi says, “Ten Sports Network and Zee Network channels are being used extensively to promote the events along with digital platforms with a two pronged approach, which is content and activation led. This also includes activities like Play With The Pro -Taking the route of gamification ahead and collaborating with our panelist and an ardent gamer; Dubsmash videos; partnering with Twitter for ‘Periscope’ live mobile video broadcasting platform to take viewers at behind the scenes of the show before it goes on air; Social TVto exploit the twitter data in real time to showcase fan sentiments around the match and Missed Call Service, which allows the audience to receive our tweets in real time via SMS.”
Additionally, the channel has also created special programming where fans could get an opportunity to relive the glorious moments of the contestants from this season in ‘Road to Glory.’
In a recent deal with UEFA, Ten Sports acquired the broadcast rights of both Champions League and Europa League for a period of three years till 2018 for the Indian subcontinent, which includes India, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan. The channel will broadcast these properties across all its platforms including premium HD offerings and live streaming of matches on tensports.com.
Backing the most vital game of the UEFA Champions League with extensive marketing and promotional activities, Ten Sportswill be rolling out its marquee activation - #MidnightFootballParty to capture fan frenzy related to the finale between Barcelona FC and Juventus.
Throwing light on the marketing plan, Basu says, “As the two European giants fight for the biggest crown in the continent, we will be deploying our marquee activation #MidnightFootballParty to capture on fan enthusiasm. Our prima objective is to co-create content with our fans and present it during the telecast of finals. The football fans will be treated to a lot of activities and viewers to refreshed content during the studio show.”
