This would come as a big setback to the Champions League T20 but the main title sponsor for the tournament, Airtel, has backed out of the deal after fulfilling only two out of the five-year contract. The contract had a clause which allowed the sponsor to back out in case of poor ratings and given the poor response that CLT20 has had so far, they were able to invoke this clause.
The Champions League T20 tournament, which is based on its soccer’s namesake, has clubs from all around the cricketing world, competing for the top club honours. It was expected to begin in 2008 but the Mumbai terror attacks postponed the event by a year. In 2009, the tournament was played in India and saw the New South Wales Blues win it. The second edition of the CLT20 was held in South Africa and was won by Chennai Super Kings.
However, the response to the tournament has generally been lukewarm. In matches, which do not involve the Indian teams, the ratings have fallen down drastically apart from some very empty stadiums, leading the organisers to scratch their heads.
According to the official TV ratings, the first edition saw the rating of around 1, which improved to 1.5 in the second edition. However, the contract allowed the sponsor to get away after two years in case the average ratings did not improve to over 3.
Already, the IPL this year was hit hard by the lack of crowds in the stands and a subsequent fall in the ratings, ostensibly due to the overkill of cricket. The Indian team played a 40-day long World Cup and went on to win the tournament, but within six days of that ending, the IPL begun. While the quality of cricket in the IPL is good, it cannot match up to the excitement and the patriotic sentiments attached to watching the national side play. Add that to the fact that there are as many as 74 games in the IPL, the audiences are struggling to cope with the amount of cricket there is to consume.
There is also a growing negative sentiment amongst the fans against the cricketers, who played in the cash-rich IPL but missed out on the tour of West Indies that followed. This under-preparedness in the five-day format of the game has probably led to the current poor performance in the Test series against England, leading to most fans being agitated about the priorities of the Indian cricketer.