Cricketnext lines up growth plans

Subhadip Sircar

Mumbai, Dec 9: The cricket war between England and India is not only being played on the field. It is on cyberspace as well, with the Walchand Capital Group promoted Cricketnext.com planning to displace the British portal CricInfo.com as the leading cricket portal by the next world cup in 2003.

Cricketnext managing director and editor Sanjay Jha says that it was a matter of time before the portal with average 80 million hits per month in 2001 displaces CricInfo, which currently has an average 110 million hits.

In order to leverage its strength as a niche vertical portal, Cricketnext is going on the paymode with a nominal subscription fee.
It is also planning to pull out of popular sites like Indya.com, Indiatimes.com and Yahoo where it is the cricket content provider unless they pay an upfront fees, according to Mr Jha.

“There are not enough players left in the dotcom business as the shake out has happened. People have rationalised expenses. We had spent about Rs 5 crore on advertising last year while we had a revenue of Rs 72 lakh. This year we have scaled down our adspend to Rs 8-10 lakh and we expect the revenues to be in the same region,” he added.

The portal is not only expected to break-even in course of the next eighteen months, but is also expected to show a profit.

The Group is also taking an e-commerce initiative, Batnext.com, which it is planning to float as a separate enterprise by the beginning of the next fiscal, said Mr Jha. Currently, Cricketnext has entered into a strategic tie-up with Rediff.com, whereby Batnext will be promoted on the site.

The Group is looking for funding to the extent of Rs 2.5-3 crore for Batnext and is in talks with venture capital funds and a few corporates.

The RPG Group is also close to picking up a 30 per cent stake in Cricketnext in a part cash and part stock deal. As part of the deal, RPG will be merging its own cricket related portal Fourthumpire.com with Cricketnext.

The move will enable Cricketnext to take the Ceat cricket ratings online. “There is enormous potential in cricket ratings. Our main competition is the Castrol and the ESPN-Star ratings system,” Mr Jha added. The RPG Group is also believed to have agreed to put its marketing muscle to promote Cricketnext, through its retail chains and telecom initiative.