In June 2003 at The Rose Bowl in Hampshire, England, the very first game of Twenty20 cricket was played between the two English county teams Hampshire and Sussex. Rather anti-climactically, the first ball was a wide. But the bowler quickly ran back to his mark to bowl again displaying a sense of urgency seldom seen in this most parochial of sports.
The inventor, former English Cricket Board (ECB) Marketing Manager Stuart Robertson had been instructed by his employer to research ways in which cricket could be made more accessible. Market research had shown that people felt excluded by the longer versions of cricket because of the time required to complete a game. Something was required that people could watch after school or work with their family and friends that would only last a few hours.
Twenty20 ticked all the boxes and became a big success. Four years later the ICC held the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa and the money started rolling in.
The winners of that first World Cup, India had largely ignored T20 cricket up until that point. But as the legions of fanatical Indian cricket lovers celebrated, plans were underway for what is now one of the most watched sporting events on the planet - the Indian Premier League (IPL)
There is quite rightly, a sense of national pride in India associated with the IPL. This tournament alone will go along way to redefining the game of cricket.
T20 is very much a game for the modern want it now generation and has many purists worried. Test Cricket - the very rock upon which cricket was built - the ultimate test of not just individual cricketing skills but of inner strength and character is on the wane.
After a very successful - albeit forced foray into a foreign market (the second season of IPL was held in South Africa this year because of security concerns in India), the entrepreneurs behind the IPL are eyeing up further expansion. This time - in America. America is not seen as a traditional cricketing nation but the prospect of a second season of IPL to be played in the US during the summer has become a very real possibility.
With the number of sub-continent and Caribbean expats in the US it is estimated that there are 15 to 20 million cricket fans in America. With a potential audience of more than double that figure it makes America the second biggest cricket market - for Twenty20 - outside of India.
The real challenge lies in how to sell Twenty20 to your average American who may have never seen the game before. The skeptics will wonder how on earth cricket can be a success in America when its main sporting rival, baseball, is so popular.
The Chairman of the IPL, Lalit Modi - points to many interesting statistics when eyeing expansion into the US. In the IPL for instance, 70% of the audience attending matches had never been to a game of cricket before. Out of that 70%, 80% of these people went to 2 or more games. Modi is confident and rightly so.
It may surprise some to learn that America does have a cricketing history. In fact, the first ever game of International cricket was played between the US and Canada in 1844. The match was held in New York and was watched by more than 10,000 spectators.
There are currently no professional cricket leagues or teams in the US however, but interestingly, the game is played extensively at grass roots level. The next step is there to be taken and the canny marketers behind the IPL are ready to pounce.
There are other cricketing frontiers that the International Cricket Council (ICC) is eyeing for expansion. The most notable country on the hit list is China. - A fledging cricketing nation in every sense of the word who has set itself the target of participating in the 2019 World Cup. If China falls in love with cricket it is quite conceivable that they could become a cricketing super-power the equal of India in 20 or 30 years from now.
The game of cricket, once the most English and exclusive of games is now well on the way to becoming entrenched in the global sporting consciousness along side sports such as football and to a lesser degree rugby. The reach and appeal of the IPL is testament to the cultural and economic growth of India. The spiritual home of cricket may well be Lords in London. But the future of the game most definitely lies elsewhere.
Thanks to Twenty20, the game of cricket is on the up. The modern game is being shaped by the masses of IPL fans in India and by the players who can now command huge salaries like never before. The game is no longer being run by a group of pipe smoking, walking stick wielding, old school tie wearing fuddy-duddies. Cricket is going global.

by AndrewBurns on Sunday, 28 June 2009 at 05:53 UAE time.

Found on guardian.co.uk:

Manchester United have been rated the eighth most valuable sports brand in the world in a new study which for the first time has assessed the comparative worths of 200 brands across the sporting spectrum.

Brands from the United States head the list compiled by SportsPro magazine, with the National Football League's value of $4.5bn (£2.75bn) ranking it No1, ahead of Major League Baseball ($3.936bn), and the National Basketball Association ($2.344bn).

United are valued at $1.495bn, three places and £200m behind the Fifa World Cup, worth $1.7bn.

The headline success story is the fledgling Indian Premier League which despite being two seasons old is rated only a place and £100m less valuable than the World Cup, the flagship property of the planet's most popular sport.

The Premier League, though, was not considered in the analysis. "The EPL and some other leagues did not make the list because they are owned by the clubs and are effectively revenue distribution entities not properties," said Tom Rubython, the editor-in-chief of SportsPro.

"As in the case of the EPL shares are returned on a team's relegation and handed over to the promoted teams. Effectively they are like a mutual ie, an old-fashioned building society. The EPL is obviously valuable but not in a monetary sense, which is why the top teams in Europe will eventually form their own league they can actually own.

"Conversely the NFL and all the other leagues in the table is a permanent league with no promotion or relegation."

While the $1.55bn-valued Ferrari is the top-ranked team, a place ahead of United, the Premier League champions are ahead of formula one ($1.45bn), which is ninth, the $1.1bn Champions League (13th), and Real Madrid, worth $1.073bn in 14th place.

Arsenal is the next highest English club in 21st, with a value of $910m, six places above Liverpool ($801m). Chelsea's $634m pushes into 55th.

Blog found on TechCrunch:

Yahoo Is Now Resorting To Selling Killer Domain Names On The Cheap
by MG Siegler on June 17, 2009

No sooner do we finish writing up Yahoo deadpooling yet another project, Gallery, do we get a tip that Yahoo apparently has another money saving/making plan: Selling off domains it owns. That's exactly what it has done with contests.com, which sold during a live auction last night.

What's really odd though (aside from an Internet giant actually selling a domain rather than buying one), is the price at which it sold. Contests.com is a killer domain name. People like my mother love nothing more than going online and searching for contests to enter to win stuff. But what's crazy is that Yahoo sold it for only $380,000.

Let's put that in some perspective. In February, Toys.com sold for $5.1 million in auction. Sure, that's a better domain, but not over 10 times better. And a few weeks ago, Candy.com sold for $3 million.

How Yahoo failed to secure even a million for the name is beyond me. Just poor luck in the auction? This guy, who apparently left right before the auction started last night is flabbergasted as well.

I just really would like to know why Yahoo would even sell it in the first place? I know times are tough at Yahoo but is $380K really going to help much in the long run? No. Hell, it'd probably be better to keep the domain and just put a load of ads on it, perhaps even Google ads. Or, I don't know, run some Yahoo contests on it. People on the web love that stuff, I hear.