IPL launches marketing blitz

The new kid on the block IPL (Indian premier league) has been launched with much fan fare in India. Without a single ball being bowled, media contracts over a billion dollars have been signed to cover the twenty20 annual tournament to be played over 44 days. This one promises to be the biggest and baddest tournaments the world has witnessed till date. With a healthy dose of Bollywood thrown in come April 18th, it will be a non stop tamasha of India's favorites passions. The success should catapult Sharad Pawar to the worlds center stage.
Some IPL facts

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (Mumbai, 111.9 million).

Vijay Mallya’s UB group (Bangalore, 111.6 million)
India Cements (Chennai, 91 million)
GMR group (Delhi 84 million)
Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad, 107 million)
a consortium led by Emerging Media of UK (Jaipur, 67 million)
Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment (Kolkata, 75.09 million)
Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia (Mohali, 76 million)

Players from the following teams have been contracted in. So much for promoting cricket in the hinterland, most players contracted seem to be already in the big league. Iconic players like Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly will see their net worth go up by several millions of dollars when their contracts are announced.

India (29): Ajit Agarkar, S Badrinath, Piyush Chawla, MS Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Sourav Ganguly, Wasim Jaffer, Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Karthik, Murali Kartik, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Munaf Patel, Parthiv Patel, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Ramesh Powar, Suresh Raina, Virender Sehwag, Joginder Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, Yuvraj Singh, S Sreesanth, Sachin Tendulkar and Robin Uthappa.

Australia (16): Shane Warne, Glen McGrath, Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey, Brett Lee, Matthew Hayden, Nathan Bracken, Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson, Simon Katich, Jason Gillespie and Cameron White.

Pakistan (6): Shoaib Malik, Mohammed Yousuf, Shoaib Akthar, Younis Khan, Mohammed Asif and Shahid Afridi.

Sri Lanka (9): Mahela Jayawardene, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Zoysa, Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakara, Farveez Maharoof and Dilhara Fernando.

South Africa (9): Graeme Smith, Ashwell Prince, Herschelle Gibbs, Albie Morkel, AB de Villiers, Shaun Pollock, Loots Bosman, Jacqes Kallis and Makhaya Ntini.

New Zealand (5): Stephen Fleming, Brendan McCullum, Jacob Oram, Daniel Vettori and Scott Styris.

West Indies (3): Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle.