Mumbai Indians Won too!

In these days when the importance of TRPs is paramount, grabbing eyeballs is as important as anything else in international cricket. It isn’t just the actual winners of the trophy that made the cricket news headlines, it is also the most popular, and the most watched that make it to the winner’s rostrum, according to Cricket360.com.

So while the Shane Warne led Rajasthan Royals may be the actual winners of the first edition of the IPL, Sachin Tendulkar’s Mumbai Indians were the winners in terms of viewership. Reportedly, there was post event report compiled by the IPL’s event management company which stated that the Mumbai Indians had a viewership of 239 million, which is the highest among any of the IPL teams.

The report stated that the Shah Rukh Khan owned Kolkata Knight Riders had the second highest viewership with 227 million viewers as per the report and the Chennai Super Kings were third on the list with 219 million viewers and Rajasthan Royals were third.

So what are the factors that determine popularity or viewership of the IPL matches, wonders Cricket360. Certainly the timing of the matches is a big factor, as is indicated by the report; the evening matches enjoyed higher viewership than the daytime matches, Fridays attracting the highest viewership of all the days of the week.

But there are several other factors that determine viewership: one of those is star power. The fact that Sachin’s team attracted the highest viewership probably indicates that the Little Master is still the most watchable and the most popular cricketer in India.  

Then there is of course the glamour quotient or the role played by the celebrity factor. With many Bollywood actors present at the fixtures either because they were paid to be there or because they had ownership stakes in the team playing the match, many were out in force. This upped the glam quotient of a game, so that if Shah Rukh or Preity Zinta were present at stadium watching a match and waving the team flag egging on their players, more viewers would be likely to tune in to watch the proceedings.

IPL has definitely transformed the game of cricket as we knew it and this new exciting form of cricket with the added film star or two thrown in makes for a potent and highly entertaining cocktail that is here to stay!