Moneycontrol.com, India's No. 1 financial portal, has a transcript of a CNBC-TV18 interview with arguably the most powerful person in the cricket world, Lalit Modi, Vice President, Board of Control for Cricket in India and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League. Mr. Modi talks about the exciting growth of the business of cricket spurred by the IPL (and also the Champions League Twenty20). 

You can read the transcript HERE, or watch the TV interview HERE.

The business of cricket is grabbing headlines again. Just when you think that cricket valuations have shot through the sky, the BCCI comes along and shows there's still more headroom to go. If the domestic IPL media rights were snapped up for close to USD 1 billion, the champions T20 League that will be inaugurated in December has been sold for another USD 900 million to be precise. CNBC-TV18’s Ramya Ramamurthy reports on what will be the most expensive cricket tournament ever

Read the complete article at Moneycontrol.com, a leading Indian financial portal.

From a Times article today:

All the grounds are reporting high demand for tickets....The credit crunch has also had little effect on corporate sales. “There is overwhelming demand for boxes and other types of hospitality, a waiting list for long-term boxes, and perimeter advertising is already sold out for the whole of 2009,” an MCC spokeswoman said.

And what of India, the most booming growth market for cricket? The eight Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises met in Bangkok last weekend and agreed to increase the cap for purchasing players from $5 million to $7 million. This will apply for the next auction of players in February, but the owners also agreed a one-month trading window from December 15 in which, as one source said, “trading can be done for players with absolutely no budgetary limits”.

The franchise owners have been buoyed by recovering, from television, sponsorship and ticket sales, almost 80 per cent of the money they paid to the Indian board for their teams. The franchises were bought for between $67 and $112 million, but are said to be worth between $250 and $300 million. They will also benefit from sharing the $1 billion of media rights that were recently sold for the Champions League.

There is speculation in India that the Deccan Chronicle Group wants to sell its 80 per cent stake in Deccan Chargers, who came last in this year's IPL, and cash in on the increase in value. Tim Wright, the chief executive of the Chargers, refused to comment but said the IPL had been more successful than anyone had expected. “The franchises did all their financial modelling before anyone knew how big IPL would be,” he said. “It has vastly exceeded expectations.”

Live Current/GVC attended the IPL franchisee meetings in Bangkok which are mentioned in this article.

From a press release issued by Live Current today:

Live Current Media Inc. (OTCBB:LIVC), a media company built around content and commerce destinations, announces that Global Cricket Ventures (“GVC”), a joint venture between Live Current and NetlinkBlue Holding, launched Cricket.com Fantasy Cricket on Oct. 9, 2008 to coincide with the start of the 2008 India-Australia cricket series in India.

This is the first major product launch at Cricket.com, which is being developed as the premier DestinationHub™ for the world's more than one-billion cricket fans. Fantasy Cricket has already registered more than 750 team entries in the first 24 hours of operations as a result of the immense global popularity of cricket and the large amounts of direct navigation traffic to Cricket.com, the world’s most intuitive online cricket brand. Going forward, Cricket.com Fantasy Cricket will be tailored for use on mobile devices and all major social networking communities, and follows the successful launch of GCV's Facebook Fantasy Cricket in spring 2008, which became the leading fantasy cricket program on Facebook.

In another important growth-focused development, Global Cricket Ventures has appointed Alex Chamberlen as Chief Revenue Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Chamberlen has fifteen years of media experience, most recently as Global Head of Sales for Cricinfo.com from Sept. 2004 to Aug. 2007. Mr. Chamberlen was an integral member of Cricinfo’s management team and helped to drive the business forward, culminating in its acquisition by ESPN. Prior to Cricinfo.com, Mr. Chamberlen was a Business Development Director at CNN International, an AOL Time Warner company.

Mark Melville, Chief Corporate Development Officer, Live Current and acting CEO, Global Cricket Ventures, said, "Fantasy sports is clearly a huge business and, as importantly, highly engages with users. There are now more than 27 million fantasy sports players in the United States alone, with annual revenue between $800 million to $1 billion. The fantasy game is just the first step in cricket.com becoming the ultimate destination for the passionate, global cricket community.”

“GCV is incredibly excited, and fortunate, to have Alex join the team and to drive the commercialization of the venture. Alex’s history within the cricket market and with blue-chip media companies bodes well for GCV’s growth. I look forward to working with Alex to rapidly grow the venture,” he added.

On September 27, 2008, GCV also launched www.bcci.tv, the official online home of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (“BCCI”) and Indian cricket. BCCI.tv represents the best online location to follow today’s India-Australia Tour as well as future Indian cricket matches. The site offers exclusive video highlights, photographs and breaking news and interviews.

Create your own Fantasy Cricket team today for a chance to win an Xbox 360. Get started by clicking on the logo:

UPDATE, Monday, Oct. 14: The number of fantasy cricket teams at Cricket.com has almost doubled since Friday, and currently stands at 1400.

Internet Retailer reports:

Consumers plan to look online for bargains this holiday shopping season – and they’ll be using a variety of strategies to find them, according to a new survey. 85% of online shoppers polled will use online tools or web sites to find good deals online, according to the survey of 2,022 online adults from research firm Harris Interactive commissioned by coupon site RetailMeNot.com.

37% of consumers say they’ll shop online this holiday season. Many are logging on to find better deals, cited by 32%; and to save money on gas, cited by 24%. When looking for bargains online 56% say they use search engines to find them, 32% use price comparison sites, 25% online coupon sites, 23% online advertisements, 12% bargain tracking sites, and 5% shopping-themed social networks.

The survey also found that 34% of online holiday shoppers intend to buy health and beauty products.

IndianTelevision.com has a very interesting Q&A with Manu Sawhney, Managing Director of ESPN STAR Sports, who have so far invested $2.25 billion in cricket broadcasting rights (most recently paying $975 million for the Champions League T20 rights). Read the interview HERE.

From the article, Indian Premier League year two ready and waiting, at the Telegraph.

"Rule number one. Don’t upset India. Rule number two. Don’t upset India. Rule number three? Don’t forget rules one and two."

The fact that the person in question hails from one of the old colonial cricketing powers highlights just how powerful the rupee has become on the back of the Indian Premier League.

The success of that tournament has not only heralded a flood of new money into the game, but it has also precipitated a shift in the political order of world cricket. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have built closer ties with the Indian board, evidence of which can be provided by their founding of the Champions League, a tournament that will offer another avenue of exposure for IPL franchises and has already realised more than £500 million in television deals....

Appealing and exploiting the pockets of the Indian middle classes will be crucial to justifying the hype. To that end franchises are monitoring social networking websites to reach new audiences.

Plans are in place to provide India’s first sporting corporate hospitality packages and the marketing of team merchandise will be a major part of fulfilling the prediction of its commissioner, Lalit Modi, who believes it can supplant the Premier League of Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger as the world’s biggest domestic competition

"We’re here to stay and we have a very bright future," said Modi. "Like football leagues all over Europe we will see similar leagues for cricket in many countries and there’s no question about it. I can see the IPL surpassing the Premier League in years to come.

Due to the hundreds of millions of middle class people living in India -- and the Indian subcontinent and abroad -- who are crazy for cricket, I would have to agree with Mr. Modi.