Gagan Ajit Singh: In the limelight

Mumbai, Jan. 15: Some may have heard of Gagan Ajit Singh of Sher-e-Jallandhar, or Viren Rasquinha, who leads the Maratha Warriors. It is less likely that people know of their favourite songs.

But they may get to, soon. ESPN-STAR Sports launched the Premier Hockey League album in late December, featuring the favourite film numbers of the five dashing young hockey captains in the championship as dancers in bodysuits gyrated Bollywood style to the chosen numbers and Rajpal Singh, who leads Chandigarh Dynamos, strutted his stuff on a miniature ramp.

If Mandira Bedi was missing, ex-beauty queen Diana Hayden was around as cheerleader, admitting to having played hockey passionately.

Thanks partly to the rise of Sania Mirza and the speed of Narain Karthikeyan and partly to the different sports channels’ promotion of “non-cricketing” games ? at international and national levels ? “other” sports are doing well on the telly, a trend that continues from 2004.

The performance of tennis, soccer and Formula I stands out even more because in 2005, cricket didn’t fare well. As Sachin Tendulkar had an injury-forced lay-off and the team faltered, advertisers tightened their purse strings.

Till November last year, ad spends on cricket on TV added up to only Rs 167.72 crore, almost a third of the Rs 442.49 crore in 2004, according to TAM Media Research. The television audience and advertisement measurement agency said cricket’s contribution to the sports ad pie shrank from 92 per cent in 2004 to 83.5 per cent in 2005.

That is still huge, but the fortunes of tennis and soccer and car and bike racing have kept shooting up. The real surprise of 2005 was golf. Till November, ad spends on the sport were Rs 2.73 crore and it had 261 advertisers backing it, the highest number after cricket, according to TAM.

“Golf is a high-profile sport and many companies realise that it makes for a great platform to use for interactivity at a certain level,” says Nimbus, a sports management company.

Although industry analysts dismiss cricket’s lowly earnings as a temporary bad phase ? like Sachin’s poor form ? and everyone agrees these are early days, other sports are steadily gaining ground.

“In our experience, cricket leads the pack, followed by soccer, tennis and car/bike racing,” says ESPN, adding that an event like the Premier Hockey League, launched in 2004, was very successful.

“Cricket spends are largely driven by Indian cricket. In 2004, India played 13 tests and 32 ODIs, while in 2005 India played eight Tests and 27 ODIs. This would account for the one-third decline in ad spends,” says the channel’s spokesperson.

Anirban Das Blah of Globosport, which manages Sania, says: “Interest has risen dramatically in tennis and racing. Earlier, we had to pay a placement fee for women’s tennis. Now if it’s a WTA event, the demand is huge. More than ad rates going up, the inventory is being sold out.”

Satish Menon of Nimbus says: “Advertising rates for soccer have certainly been above expectations.”

ESPN agrees, citing that the rates for next year’s World Cup have gone up by 20 per cent.

Menon argues that live telecast of other sports has added to their popularity.