Batting for celebrity cricket

Part of the Mumbai Heroes team: (From left)
Vatsal Seth, Sameer Kochhar, Aftab Shivdasani, Apoorva Lakhia and Varun Badola

The idea of Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) germinated when Vishnu Induri, who started his innings with Bharatstudent.com., India’s first social networking site, organised cricket matches for the Movie Artists Association (MAA), Andhra Pradesh. It was initially an one-day event, which was held once in every two or five years to raise funds for the Association.
“The viewership and the response from the crowd was huge. We realised that this kind of a project, with film actors playing cricket, had a great potential to be made into good business. That’s how the CCL took off,” said the software engineer, who’s now the Founder and MD of the League.
Once Induri starting approaching actors, he saw their undying passion for the game and their willingness to come on board. Karnataka Bulldozers, Kerala Strikers and Mumbai Heroes quickly followed the Telugu Warriors. Today there are eight teams in all, including the Veer Marathi, Bhojpuri Dabang, Chennai Rhinos and Bengal Tigers.
The procedure of owning a franchise is simple. The actor, who wants to buy a team approaches the franchise and if approved, pays the franchise fees of Rs.15 crore for a decade, which can be paid in installments of Rs.75 lakhs to a crore per year.
“Then it’s the owner’s responsibility to bring a team together to play. We don’t know the commercial aspects of a particular team and how much an owner pays each actor. The owner, however, makes his money from individual sponsors. An example like Sohail Khan’s Mumbai Heroes has Venkys backing them amongst others. Each team is also paid a percentage (in the range of 5-10 per cent) from the CCL’s Central Pool revenue, which collects money from sponsors, broadcast rights, tickets, ground branding, the title sponsor etc. The remaining goes into the CCL kitty. While the CCL hosts the semi finals and finals, each team has to host one match on their home-ground during the games. For instance, Mumbai Heroes host a game in Dubai, Veer Marathis in Pune etc. The expenditure for this can vary from Rs. 1.5 to Rs. 2 crores. We struggled in the initial two years, but now CCL is a growing property. We are getting into a comfortable zone as the revenue is growing every year. The viewership also has grown by forty per cent this year, which is a big jump,” said the Founder-MD.
With eight teams already on board, there is an increasing pressure from actors of other states like Punjab and Orissa to be a part of the brand. “But the CCL wants to consolidate their existing team firsts and then take on a few more. The major challenge of forming CCL was getting the audience to treat film stars playing cricket seriously. Besides, the Indian Premier League (IPL) was the more preferred game. But after watching actors play quality cricket, there has been a change in the viewership pattern in the last three years and the business is taking on a serious shape. Now the cream of audience want to be a part of CCL, which is a big high for us,” said Induri, who also has plans to make a film on the event that changed the entire game of cricket. Most of the players from different teams will be part of the project.

Producers demand for hassle-free permission policies for film shoots

The Film Federation Of India held the second edition of the India International Film Tourism Conclave (IIFTC 2014), in Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. IIFTC 2014 was inaugurated by chief guest, film-maker Ramesh Sippy, with other fraternity members such as Mukesh Bhatt, veteran writer Kamlesh Pandey among others. This year, IIFTC promises to be much bigger, with the participation of various European, Asian, African countries vying to get a pie of the flourishing foreign shoot market of the Indian film industry. Commenting on IIFTC 2014, Ravi Kottarakara, President, Film Federation Of India, said, “As the apex film trade body of the country, we felt that a pan India film tourism event which elucidates the symbiotic relationship between films and tourism was very much the need of the hour. IIFTC was born out of that desire to fill a void and as we embark on our second edition, I am sure our conclave will make that perennial search of film-makers for that elusive and feasible location into a pleasurable and yet business driven exercise.”
Balaji Spark to represent talent launched by Balaji Motion Pictures

A talent management division called Balaji Spark, a part of Balaji Telefilms (BTL) and Balaji Motion Pictures Ltd (BMPL), has been launched which will represent both on-screen as well as directorial talent, discovered and launched by BTL and BMPL. The mission within Spark is to manage this talent and get opportunities on various platforms and also to work with the media companies, brands, production houses, etc., to innovate solutions to establish and extend the reach to the public.

 

Sunny Deol to endorse a mango drink

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Actor Sunny Deol has been signed on as the brand ambassador for a beverage brand called Mango Sip, which is a flagship brand of Vadodra-based Manpasand beverages. The brand felt that Deol, who had a strong fan following, gelled well with the brand’s presence among the masses of the country.

 

Abhishek Bachchan back in the Idea ads

Abhishek Bachchan is back in the Idea ad, after a few commercials which didn’t feature the actor. The Idea commercials have always been popular with their creativity and catchy taglines like ‘What an idea, sirjee’. Even the latest commercial is called ‘No Ullu Banawing’, and is gaining popularity with its catchy tune.