IBL team Banga Beats looks at Rs 2.5 crore brand building spends

IBL team Banga Beats looks at Rs 2.5 crore brand building spends

Banga Beats

BENGALURU: Team Banga Beats from Bengaluru‘s promoters and international property consultant BOP plans to spend around Rs 2.5 crore, mainly for BTL activities, during the course of the year towards media communications and brand building. ATL activities for the present include print, outdoor and digital.

"ATL spends in many markets across the world is lower than BTL", said BOP GM-marketing Karan Caudhri to Indiantelevision.com. BTL activities would involve school activities, and BOP is looking at participation from 25 schools this year. "BOP plans organising tournaments in schools and expects about 50 children from each school to participate in tournament. Badminton is a sport that is played by people across all ages in India. All that is required is a couple of rackets, a net, a shuttlecock, but, infrastructure in most places in not there, or difficult to access. Since real estate is our business, we will also be visiting hosing societies and see what we can do there", revealed Caudhri. Overall, BOP spends between one-two per cent of the value of its real estate inventory towards marketing and mass media communications.

Speaking about getting sponsors on board for team Banga Beats, Caudhri said, "Its early days yet, the teams have been auctioned just a week ago. Most teams would preferably like to at least recover the franchisee fees and the money paid for the players in the auction. As the game and the event gains popularity, we could get there by the next edition. I am sure that by 14 August, we will have some sponsors on board."

Caudhri was in Bengaluru to introduce the Banga Beats team players to their home city. Banga Beats players include P. Kashyap (India), Hu Yan (Hong Kong), Tai Tzu-ying (Taiwan), Carolina Marin (Spain), Carsten Morgensen (Denmark), Arvind Bhat (India), Akshay Dewalkar (India), Arana Balan (India), Aditya Prakash (India) and J Meghana (India). The team’s CEO is Vijay Lany, its chief coach is U Vimal Kumar and its chief consultant is Gagan Narang.

BOP is also looking at team merchandise as a revenue stream. Tickets for the event are controlled centrally for now, with some revenue share for teams.

The Indian Badminton league (IBL) announced yesterday Star Sports channels as the host broadcaster for the IBL 2013. All the 90 matches, including 75 league matches, 10 matches in the semifinals and five matches in the final will be shown live on Star Sports 2 and ESPN channels.

The one million dollar IBL which features six franchisee-based city teams kicks off from 14 August, 2013. 

Mumbai Masters, Delhi Smashers, Awadhe Warriors, Hyderabad Hotshots, Banga Beats and Pune Pistons will feature in the inaugural edition of the richest prize-money badminton tournament in the world.