Mobile users in India are used to texting CRI to any four digit number you fancy to get instantaneous cricket scores - a very convenient way to keep track of the game in the middle of a boring afternoon Quality Training session! Texting is unobtrusive, simple and cheap. No wonder every telco, media company, cricket portal, and aggregator has a service like this in India. SMS revenues go through the roof when India is playing - and even though SMS prices in India are very low, sheer volumes generated good revenues for everyone concerned. Everyone that is, except the cricket authorities!
Well, the Pakistan Cricket Board thought otherwise, and apparently had farmed out "exclusive" SMS rights for their matches to a company called Vectracom. However thanks to the afore-mentioned players already offering these services in India, Vectracom could not monetize the rights they paid for in India. They moved court, and the Madras High Court has ordered a bunch of companies in India to stop offering these services.
Where does one draw the line on what the cricket board controls? Will they now prevent TV channels from reporting live scores? NDTV, Aaj Tak and everyone else has tickers running with live scores when the match is in progress. Does that infringe upon the rights of the broadcast rights holder (Ten Sports in this case)? The SMS guys claim that are similar to news channels and are just disseminating news, and are not infringing upon any rights. Truth be told, they get their scores from third-party providers like Cricinfo - who publish scores on the Web and is hence public domain.
Obviously the cricket board and Vectracom are unhappy because these services generate real revenue, unlike the tickers on NDTV which can't be directly translated to rupee value. However, such technology is impossible to legislate and pragmatism should be the name of the game. The PCB was perhaps naive in offering these rights on a global basis to Vectracom - after all, how can Vectracom or the PCB or whoever else control what gets published on the Internet/sent across mobile phones/put on TV/read on newspapers across the world? Very flimsy legal ground on this one, methinks. If one of these companies offering SMS turns around and says that they are picking up the scores from TV/Internet (public domain) and relaying it with their own value adds to their customers, what rights do the PCB have to prevent that from happening?
What is the way out? It is clear that the PCB and other cricket authorities want to make money out of this. The best way to do that is to appoint a service provider who can provide such official services 'legally' to all interested players and consumers. This has to be publicised in advance so everyone is aware. All interested telcos can then take the feed from them for a fee, and relay the same to their respective consumers. Of course they cannot completely prevent Mom and Pop Telco in Timbucktoo from doing their own thing, but they can potentially cover the major players and convert this into a win-win situation. Pricing has to be right, and content has to be compelling. If the 'official' content is good and not easy to replicate (read star cricketer comments, live comments from the ground, player reactions etc) - a majority of the consumers will demand and pay for that content - as long as it is priced the same as before. You charge premium rates, and the consumer will go for a free/cheaper alternative.
New technology throws open new revenue opportunities, but along with that comes fresh challenges. This is just evolving - the big bang will happen when there is real serious money to be made through mobile phones for sports authorities. Fun lies ahead!
Update:
The Madras High Court has lifted the stay for the ODI series, but has told Vectracom and Marksman Services that they may still be compensated after the series is done and dusted. So text away guys!
Categories: Mobile, sport business, technology, cricket
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