DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

Many of these talented cricketers lost out of the sponsorship boom which began in the mid 1990s and which made cricketing millionares out of star players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly and many more, since they had either retired or past their prime by then or in the case of some never made it to the top league for many reasons inspite of being very talented.

But come World Cup 2007 many of these yesteryear stars are slated to rake in the big bucks with deals worth crores of rupees with many TV channels desperate to garner some big names for their prime time cricket related telecasts to win the viewership battles.

NEW DELHI: With the Cricket World Cup on the anvil, former cricketers are in business. News channels are offering them big money for special shows and match analysis. TV Today has signed up former Indian cricket captain Kapil Dev for an estimated Rs 2.5 crore for Aaj Tak and other channels.

TV Today’s Executive Director G Krishnan refused to comment on Kapil Dev’s fee but said he would be their resident expert for all the key matches.

“He is the only Indian captain to have led the team to a World Cup victory and his passion for the game is unmatched. As a policy, we don’t reveal details of a contract,” he said.

Global Broadcast News (GBN), which runs CNN-IBN and IBN7, is close to signing up Navjot Singh Sidhu(recently convicted in a murder case. But dare you not question the Holier than thou Media you fascist, hatemonger, !@^$!@#$!@) for a whopping Rs 1.5 crore.

The less popular former cricketers manage to earn between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 50 lakh from similar deals. Zee News, meanwhile, has roped in Nikhil Chopra, Vinod Kambli, Maninder Singh, and Zaheer Abbas.

The reason for this kind of spending is quite obvious. Cricket is virtually a religion in itself in this country and there is huge amount of demand for anything related to cricket. Cricketing shows, trivia, quizzes and even highlights and re-telecasts of matches draw in huge audiences which means huge ad-revenues($$$$).

“Cricket is a religion in this country and as a news channel we cannot under-serve the viewer(can’t let go of the huge moolah),” said Krishnan(CEO of TV Today). Besides, cricket generates advertising(translation- $$$$), as brands like to be associated with it.

The World Cup is scheduled to be held between March 13-April 28, 2007 in the West-Indies. The Indian team is scheduled to play its first match on Sat, 17th March against Bangladesh in Trinidad & Tobago.