YouTube nabs live sports streaming rights
By Vlad Savov 
posted January 20th 2010 4:54AM
posted January 20th 2010 4:54AM
posted January 20th 2010 4:54AM
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@beneditor I guess the other person mentioned about a single country which is 1 billion+ and loves cricket. It is not only watched by India but looooooooooootttttttttttt more other countries too. It is someway good that USA is not capable to play this sport. Well wait, is american Cricket coming!!
Considering that the Cricket clubs of India have and spend more money on Cricket than than FIFA or NFL or the NBA... this is a big deal.
@abhilashk
hows that possible?
@abhilashk
I would be surprised to see FIFA spend money on Cricket...
But I get your point. There are over 1 billion people in India alone, that's a hell of a market for any sport.
@travisonfire
What i meant was that the moneys involved specifically in Indian cricket with regards to telecast rights, endorsements, players is much more than what FIFA, NFL or NBA would spend for their respective sports.
@cmdrdingbat
And considering that everybody is really mad after cricket, its an even bigger market for player endorsements.
@abhilashk
doubtful.
the nfl alone contains 32 franchises.
average revenue per franchise hovers just ~50mil below a full BILLION dollars per franchise.
one of the posters bragged about the ipl boasting 8 franchises with the cheapest one scoring ~23mil.
the operating cost of the nfl is about ~20mil versus an income revenue of around ~200mil, and that's AFTER player salaries.
fifa or the ipl might incur a greater operating cost but they sure as hell don't boast the numbers the nfl do.
as a whole, the various cricket and football clubs around the world might make more combined but the nfl is the SINGLE most RICHEST sports league in the world.
I know people like taking potshots at the usa and joke about how our sports aren't as widely watched as others.
but who cares?
us americans love to watch us some homegrown sports and those sports generate revenue leagues ahead of what the other guys do.
some more numbers:
the single richest sports club in the world is manchester united with ~1.5bil.
next is the dallas cowboys with ~1.2bil.
after that, the list gets hazy.
but it goes on to include arsenal, real madrid, (juventus is disputed), the ny yankees and several other nfl teams. not necessarily in that order.
the kicker? the nfl contributes more clubs to the top 10 than any other league.
@rayln
Thats a lot of figures. I am not much of a sports fan but I know that when they rank "Sports Clubs" they dont really look at cricket.
Just broadcast rights for 4 years in India costs the brodcaster upwards of 500 million USD... and thats USD not INR. Thats roughly USD125 million per year. Forget anything else.
See this link which talks about the Indian Premier League which is a small part of Indian Cricket, to understand that the kind of money spent on cricket in India is beyon fanatical
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_premier_league#Franchisees
In any case, ALl I really want to say is that cricket is big in India. As big as, if not bigger, than the NFL is in the US.
@abhilashk
What? If you're talking pure numbers IPL is nowhere close to football(soccer), NFL, NBA etc. Just because it has a lot of fans/followers doesn't necessarily make it rich. Look at the NFL, no one gives a damn outside the US, but it has the richest clubs. Man U is the most recognizable football brand in the world and it's only a few hundred million richer than the Dallas Cowboys.
BTW I hate T20 ;P
@rayln what endorsements and companies aim for is the buying power that they could potentially target. it doesnt matter if the big shots decide to pitch in with billions. they are never going to buy a toyota. the viewers of IPL are potential buyers.
@rayln haha you just proved what everyone thinks about the USA. Look how much we spend, we are the biggest and the best because we spend the most money. Look where that got the world :P
It's like your "World" Series baseball. The USA is the world right. HAHA
The Indian Premier League is the equivalent of EPL(English Premier League) and is quite a lucrative one. There are currently 8 franchises,cheapest one drawing a revenue of Rs 1.06bil/- (roughly ~$23 Million)
More here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Premier_League#Statistics_and_records
i believe the first international cricket match was held between America and Canada and it was the favorite sport of Mr g. Washington. So American get out and support you look major league cricket team (how american is that) then when you get good at it come and try and beat us aussies
It's a major catch engadget, and does nothing but help google break into the market of the world's second most populated country.
America is the greatest country in the world, but most Americans are ignorant and arrogant... It will be interesting to see what that will lead to in the coming decades...
@f2000372
"America is the greatest country in the world, but most Americans are ignorant and arrogant... It will be interesting to see what that will lead to in the coming decades..."
They'll simply blame the newly discovered outside world for their 'third world' status.
This is gr8 news .... as a cricket fan who lives outside the indian subcontinent it is really hard to watch cricket . But to be honest i was not so interested in NFL either .... it was only after watching it online that i got hooked to it !!! I hope this works the same way for cricket and more and more people follow this sport ..
Everyone seems to be pointing out how big a sport cricket is without considering the fact that most of the countries where it's popular have ridiculously low levels of internet penetration.
There might be a billion people in India but there's only 5-6 million broadband internet connections (which i'm guessing you're gonna need for a decent quality stream).
Google likely knew that using cricket as their testing ground meant that the service would mainly be used by followers of the sport in countries where it's considered a niche (like America).
I'd like to add that i'm not american, but still think that calling all americans ignorant and arrogant, as other people have, is rather naive in this situation. There's ignorant/arrogant people everywhere. It's just that more of the american ones have internet access.
@eponymousdebut You're right about the internet penetration. Although I suppose the same goes for soccer. The countries that it is most popular in are third-world countries, like Brazil. Internet penetration in those isn't very high, either. Although statistics say otherwise, I think internet penetration is quite high. I don't know anyone without broadband internet, or a computer for that matter! I'm sure the same goes for England and Australia.
But nicely said about ignorant/arrogant Americans with internet access!
Does anyone else think that internet streaming cricket would suck? Its hard enough following the ball on a standard definition television, how crappy will it be on youtube's compressed video?
@fazzball
But think how much better it is than not seeing the game at all.
I for one grew up in upstate NY and know nothing from or abuot cricket other than the occasional appearance of it in a movie or something.
However.. I will watch a couple games probably because it is right there and easy to access and I am assuming free.
That's a brilliant move.
Plenty of people are very interested.
Huge populations actually.
And many of those people end up transplanted here and have little in the way of access.
Very smart on googles part.
Google actually got it cheap as compared to USD 1B deal with Sony for 10 year TV rights, which was later revised to 1.3B. They only have to share the profits with IPL for 2 years.
Besides this, Its going to serve a lot of Indian audience (Plus a few in western hemisphere too ), who miss out games while in office :P or due to time difference.
@dimithrak
First of all - I said "in occidental countries". India is not occidental. New Zealand and Australia would be up there in popularity for cricket. Yes, cricket is most popular in India (thanks to British colonialism), but that wasn't my point - I said "occidental", not "oriental".
Secondly, India's population is 1 billion, and considering it is a third-world nation its television audience is much smaller - only 32% of households have television sets in 2005 (according to http://bit.ly/5EVyUK), compared to New Zealand's 98%. Australia, USA and UK have similar statistics. Sure, by sheer numbers, India wins, but by television audience penetration, aforementioned occidental countries trump India.
And no, I haven't travelled out of the Aus/NZ region. That doesn't mean I'm ignorant. I don't know where you live, but travel is a lot more expensive when you live in an island nation like I do in relative isolation (especially from US/Europe/Asia).
@filjosh
Sorry, I meant: "Although I doubt many [New Zealanders and Australians] would be interested in the Indian Premier League..."
I know it is very popular overseas. I was wrong about it not being popular in New Zealand and Australia, I know it is. And I like cricket.
However, the reason I wrote my comment originally was because the article states: " these rights don't relate to the NBA, NFL or anything else quite so exciting to the Western viewer"
Which I thought was a little close-minded. They could've just as easily replaced "Western" with "American". I was showing that westerners do like cricket! And just because it isn't NFL or NBA they seem to think that it wouldn't be popular. In fact I'm sure there'd be a lot more western viewers for the FIFA World Cup!
And I wasn't "trying to show my opinion as every once" as you so erroneously put it - that's why I'm signed in under "wdansey", not "everyone".
live coverage of sporting events is great. wake me up when they get the rights to 6 Nations Rugby
this is great news, although i'm not sure where the perception comes from that this isn't targeted towards the western hemisphere, unless you're defining western hemisphere as the US, i'm from england, where any fan knows about the IPL, and in most cases would like to watch it, since it features the best of the best in terms of the most talented players.
p.s beats NFL anyday! It's ok, but how can you enjoy a game that's just stopping every 5 seconds, don't understand the appeal, stick with good ol' rugby (love NHL n NBA though)
Cricket FTW! Although, I'm still opposed to all this online streaming stuff just because it's another thing that eats up bandwidth and here in Canada we have limits but pay crazy prices... :(
IPL is an amazing league, even Moore at EA Sports has recognized the growing interest in the league. Love 20twenty cricket; it's cricket that plays in about 2-4 hours (compared to 6-8 hours for standard one-day cricket, or 2-5 days for test matches), so it's easier to be a 'prime time' sport like all the standard big league sports. Is this going to be a premium pay for service, or free streaming? Last year I paid $100 via my cable provided (actually I paid 1/2 that price, because I work for the man) to get the full season of IPL live.
I usually do not fall into this trap, but there is so much bashing of Americans on this post that I'm going to jump in and say that I really don't care about cricket. I had a British camp counselor try to teach it to a bunch of us when I was a kid, and I found it to be a poor substitute for baseball. So I will gladly ignore this development until I can get the NFL or NBA through live streaming. I'm quite happy with my American sports, and I am not bothered if people in other countries think that makes me ignorant. You enjoy your sports, and I'll enjoy mine. I do enjoy soccer/football though :)
Dear Engadget, United States 'sports',
Welcome to irrelevance.
At some point, when you look outside your little bubble, you will see that the rest of the world plays a lot of sports that you, in your insulated little land, know nothing about. Now you run along and play your 'sports'. When you actually play with other countries, you might get your asses kicked.
I guess XM Radio's ATN Asian Radio (XM159) station will now have video competition. They have played IPL matches the last two years.
I am from India but living in US. Generally, Americans are good at any sports they take up. Cricket hasn't been promoted the way it should have been in this country. It has started growing a bit now.
In the West, it has a strong hold in and around Seattle, greater San Francisco area, Los Angeles as well as Arizona. It also has a big base in the East around New Jersey, New York, Atlanta, Florida, etc. It is also gaining some popularity in Chicago, Dallas, Colorado, etc.
Even though the total number of Under-19 players who are playing this sport in this country is limited to barely a couple thousand or less, isn't it amazing that the Team USA made it to the U-19 World Cup being currently played in New Zealand?
Yes, the team could not post any victory against top cricketing nations like Australia or South Africa but then we are comparing professional level players against amateurs.
For the record, AT THIS TIME, cricket in played in this country only as a time pass on the weekends. The youngsters that have gone to the World Cup have no professional coaching and no access to play against professional players. It wasn't easy for them to prepare as they didn't know what they were up against.
But thanks to a new set of Board of Directors like Nabeel Ahmed, John Aaron, Raj Padhi, Ahmed Jeddy, etc. it's all starting to take shape now. They are determined to promote the game aggressively at the grass root level starting with schools and colleges.
You can follow the progress by becoming a fan of their newly created Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/USA-Cricket-Association/238522546996
If the team can be in the top 16 at the U-19 level when it is barely an amateur sport, imagine the possibilities of it's success when it truly goes professionsl. Watch out Aussies and Indians. We are coming. :-)
HOWZAAAAAAAAT?
This is just not cricket old boy.
etc.
@dimithra, I think wdansey meant *cricket* (as a sport) was most popular in Australia/New Zealand (debatable), and that he doubted many *Australasians* would be interested in the Indian Premier League (likely true, compared to Indians).
In any case, relax a little, it's not an attack on you.
for Cricket fans in US : It does not look like it will be live or on short delay. Cricinfo says "re-broadcast options will be available" .. don't know what it means. http://www.cricinfo.com/ipl2010/content/story/445173.html
Cricket is one of the beat sports in this world, it amazing sport where skill n tactics are required to win the game