Pakistan Super League is a franchise T20 cricket tournament organized by the Pakistan Cricket Board. Top international and local cricketers represent six cities of Pakistan. Quetta, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Islamabad, and Multan vie for PSL glory.

The Challenge

Pakistan Super league is a PCB endorsed cricketing event and first of its kind in terms of investment as well as inclusion of foreign cricketers. Since this event was being held outside Pakistan the real challenge was to market this flagship event to the Pakistanis overseas.

Insight

The PSL like any other sports league is a high volume economical activity Pakistan Cricket Board sold all five team franchises for $93 million for a ten-year period. Karachi became the most expensive team with the ARY Group shelling out $26 million to gain ownership. At least 80 percent of the revenue from the broadcast rights is split equally among the five PSL franchises. The remaining 20 percent will go to the PCB.

Similarly at least 50 percent of the revenue from the sponsorship rights is shared among the franchises and the PCB will utilise the other 50 percent.

Strategy

Being an event for the masses we opted to provide a blanket coverage on  International  ATL mediums.

Execution

The event was being held in UAE we bought high volume of inventory on all Pakistani as well as Indian channels, while securing ultra competitive rates as well as value additions to give extra mileage to the campaign, after conducting in-depth research and media planning the inventory was booked on key timeslots in order to ensure the campaign creates as well as maintains the top of mind positioning of the brand.

Results

The ensuing hype and campaign coverage played a huge part in the success of the event the footfall and viewership was record high and the event was deemed huge success by various sports pundits.

Since matches began in the UAE on February 4, national television viewing figures have been higher than those for the 2015 World Cup, with 55 per cent of Pakistan’s TV-watching public tuning into the tournament at peak times, which translates to around 65 million people tuning in to the PSL during peak periods

Furthermore, being a part of the inauguration campaign for this National event gave our Karachi office a huge boost in prestige and credibility.