Putting a price on the Cricket Diaspora:
[Via The Long Tail]
One of my more theoretical Long Tail examples was sports which are hits in their place of origin but niches elsewhere, something that applies as well to most college football as it does to the example I chose, cricket. The “Cricket Diaspora“, which is millions of people, mostly from current and former Commonwealth countries who now live elsewhere, was a perfect example of how Long Tail tactics of reaching distributed demand could tap new markets.Now, a couple years later, this is actually turning into a big business. From PaidContent:>
“Reliance ADA Group, the Indian telecom and media conglomerate, has bought a 70 percent stake in Willow.tv, the Cricket webcasting site based in Sunnyvale, CA. The price was undisclosed, but according to Rajesh Sawhney, president of Reliance Entertainment, the company will spend about $60 million to $70 million in this acquisition and expansion together, quoted in WSJ.
Willow TV has been around for about five years, and named after the tree from which Cricket bats are made. It was among the first to start live webcasting cricket matches for expatriate audience worldwide, though a big part of its audience is South Asians in U.S. (including me). It charges anywhere from between $10 for a short series to $150 a full cricket tournament, depending on the countries and number of games involved. In 2007-08, the site has streamed most of the major tournaments live, including the Indian Premier League, Australian, South African and English cricket.”
A very nice example of how modern technology creates new markets that could not have existed previously. I wonder what other entertainment models would work?
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