In IPL each team has a mix bag of players from India &
other nations. There is a mutual contribution of a player to the team &
vice-versa. As far as the branding of the team through the player is concerned,
with the involvement of players from quite a lot of nations, IPL has become a
global brand. Also each team is liked & promoted keeping in mind the mix of
the players (both national & international). Additionally the planners of
the game believe that though a domestic league, IPL is an international
business with international investors, international players, and a worldwide
broadcast. In this global level game which is promoted also keeping the cities
at the heart has certain rules for the franchise before the auction for
individual players started (since 2008). It had selected a few senior players
as icon players & they represented the city they hailed from like Sachin
Tendulkar. The rule made it mandatory for the icon players to play for their city
to increase the fan base & loyalty for a particular franchise in their respective
city. The strategy to keep the icon players from the respective cities helped
to endorse the entire event from the patronage of the follows from the place of
the teams. Then the anthems, songs, & merchandises in the presence of the players
only add to the sense of patronage in India.
As far as the team,
brand endorsement through the players is concerned; IPL has created a
benchmark of being the high point of the cricket odyssey in Inch. It has turn
into an expression of the emerging new veracity of world cricket and of the
growing Indian influence in International League games. In general, celebrity
endorsers may lure attention to ads, increase awareness of the brand, and help
to distinguish one brand from another. Advertisers hope that positive attitude
toward the endorser will transfer to the ad and the brand. Source credibility
is an important influence on the creation of attitudes toward endorsers and the
allocation of this affect toward the endorsed brand. The superstar players have
high brand equity due to many reasons. From the behavior perspective, the brand
value add stem from the cultural meanings with which these celebrity players
are endowed. Such cultural meanings may include status, gender, class and age
as personality & lifestyles. Players brands are valuable as these cultural
meanings can be passed from the celebrity players to consumers through services
provided (e.g. Telecom) and products endorsed. Such superstar effects arise
because of joint consumption technology & imperfect replacement of consumers'
preferences. The joint consumption technology shows that a large number of individuals
can consume the "celebrity' service together, thus indicating great
economies of scale for superstars. The imperfect substitution means that amount
cannot substitute for quality: that is, the worth of watching a superstar
player is greater than the value of watching several ordinary players. And this
is the one of the reasons as to why branding in Indian Sports has increased hugely.
Most importantly, it is also guaranteed that celebrities are chosen accordingly
whose image fits appropriately the sport they are associated with. This can be
explained by seeing the framework on brand association as follows:
