Franchises owners and sponsors prefer UAE as IPL venue outside India

IPL team owners have shown a preference for UAE

With the final venue to host the seventh edition of the Indian Premier league still undecided even after the announcements of the General Lok Sabha election dates, the club owners and sponsors are rooting for the United Arab Emirates to be selected as the host over South Africa.

“We have told BCCI that the UAE is better suited,” chief executive officer of Kolkata Knight Riders Venky Mysore told reporters. “We have to look at it from a sponsor standpoint as well.”

The UAE’s well-based Indian population and short flight duration from India is one of the main attractions, according to the Economic Times.

K. Shanmugam, the chief executive officer of Sunrisers Hyderabad also preferred UAE as the venue. “Ticket revenues could also be higher in the UAE,” he said.

Among the sponsors, PepsiCo’s vice-president of marketing Deepika Warrier insisted that keeping the venue close to India would be the wise thing to do.

“The Pepsi IPL is a ‘local global’ tournament. Distance and taking it away from its home ground could potentially reduce a bit of its buzz among local fans and add to activation costs. There is some correlation between going further away from the home country and consumer interest, which we believe could have a small impact on viewer-ship.”

“It is a local tournament and doing as much of it closer home, with stadia full of city/state/franchise fans, would be better in all ways,” she added.

PepsiCo are tied to a five-year contract with the IPL, and are expected to pay almost around Rs. 400 crore over the years.

Rohit Gupta of Multi Screen Media (who are in charge of the broadcast of IPL) shares the same view as the others as well.

“Timings of the games to be telecast in India will not change, so UAE, which is an hour and a half behind India, is better compared with South Africa, which is three and a half hours behind us.”