Nothing connects the audiences across the country like cricket. Unlike in a soap or a music channel where you can address only one segment of the audience, cricket offers a platform where you can address a larger segment. Large viewership, of course, also translates into more advertising and better sales volumes.

Between the World Cup which ended in March and the ongoing TVS tri-series, there was a six-month lull. Now again, mileage and moolah are driving a host of sponsors, companies and television channels to battle it out for consumers' eyeballs and pockets.

The advertising spends go up during the cricket bonanza and are maximum during the One Day Internationals in which India is playing. The graph below shows the percentage jump in ad duration for the matches in which India is playing. Advertisers are digging deep into their pockets to make sure they have a place on the pitch when the Indians are in action.

The graph below shows that advertisers tend to give more ads during matches where the probability of India winning is higher. The spends were the highest during the India-Australia match on 26 October, India-New Zealand match on 6 November and India-New Zealand match on 15 November. The obvious reason was that India's chances to win these matches were high. We won in the match on 26 Oct and our chances of winning against NZ in both the matches on 6 Nov and 15 Nov were high although Indian lost the match on 6 Nov.