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DELHI: ESPN Star Sports Tuesday said it has written 80 per cent more advertising
revenue for the ICC World Twenty20 matches as compared to the last edition in
2007, with 10 sponsors and an additional 20 corporates for spot-buys on live as
well as pre-post programming. The
co-presenters of the event are Reliance, Pepsi-Cola, and Hero Honda while the
associate sponsors are HP, Maruti, Max New York Life Insurance, Perfetti, Nokia,
Adani, and Visa. ESPN
Star Sports has reached an agreement with Doordarshan to telecast live on the
national channel all the ICC World Twenty20 matches featuring India, the two semi-finals
on 18 and 19 June, and the final on 21 June. Doordarshan
will do its own marketing for the telecasts on its channel, sources in Prasar
Bharati said. The
Twenty20 event, which kicks off in the United Kingdom on 5 June, will be viewed
on Star Cricket and the telecast reach out to as many as 216 countries through
syndication deals with multiple broadcasters. The
matches will be telecast on high definition for the first time, said ESPN Software
India managing director RC Venkateish, while refusing to divulge the budgetary
implications on grounds of company policy. Earlier
at a press meet where the ICC T20 Trophy was displayed, Venkateish said the sports
broadcaster has lined-up many interesting on-air initiatives to make the telecast
entertaining and engaging. He said ten preparatory matches including two featuring
India (against New Zealand and Pakistan) will also be telecast.
The broadcaster
will also showcase live semi-finals and finals of the ICC Women’s World Twenty20
2009. The high definition telecast will feature 13 cricketing legends and expert
commentators for all the matches. The
sports broadcaster has ensured that the commentary panel has representation from
almost all the cricket playing countries so that the viewers can get a flavour
of each team to showcase their talent on the big stage. The ESPN Star Sports commentary
panel will include stars like Wasim Akram, Sanjay Manjrekar, Alan Wilkins, Harsha
Bhogle, Nasser Hussain, David Lloyd, Ian Chappell, Simon Doull, Kepler Wessels,
Ian Bishop, Ranil Abeynayake, Athar Ali Khan and Jeremy Coney. ESPN
Star Sports will do extensive programming in and around the live telecast. All
matches will have detailed pre and post match shows titled ‘Cricket Extra’.
These shows will be hosted by Bhogle and Manjrekar from the venue itself. In addition,
there is an interactive cricket based quiz, ‘Stumped’. This is first
time that a live interactive quiz show is being telecast. The
ICC World Twenty20 will be broadcast by ESPN Star Sports as a part of its eight-year
agreement with ICC. | 
