Click to play videoNew Delhi: For nearly a century cricket has been all about men on couches watching other men sweat it out on the field. But, now advertisers have taken it upon themselves to set things straight.
Cricket's been traditional male bastion, men in blue are watched by men in living rooms and that's just the audience most sports channels have catered to until now.
Says CEO, Neo Sports, Shashi Kalathil, "Our core veiwership is male."
However, times are changing and what started as a big gamble by SET Max four years ago - diversifying cricket content and having Manidra Bedi on their shows - has brought a change in the way some channels are marketing their programming for cricket is now being rebranded as entertainment for families.
Says Marketing Director Set Max, P Gangadhar, "Cricket was all about male snobbery, but when we got in Mandira Bedi, women viewership of the sport shot up by almost 80 per cent."
Already there has been a visible change in brands that advertise during cricket matches. Hero Honda and Bajaj were the only male brands among the top 20 advertisers during the 2003 world cup, with women fairness brand Fair & Lovely coming in at number 6.
This year too, some of the top world cup advertisers are LG, Noika, Nike and Pepsi, all of whom target a mixed audience.
But while advertisers cannot ignore the sheer eye balls cricket brings compared to some of their saas-bahu soaps, not many are confident enough to go all out and woo the so called 'non-core viewers'.
Says Kalathil, "We are not sure how many matches women will watch."
But a beginning has been made, so it was little wonder then when ESPN-Star Sports bid $1.1 billion for 18 ICC tournaments that also includes Woman's World Cup.
(With inputs from Roma Khanna in Mumbai)
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