Cheerleaders for Indian Premier League?
Bangalore, India - April 17, 2008

Washington Redskins cheerleaders, usually found urging on the American football side of the same name, will make their subcontinental debut when they take to the field for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, the newly created cricket team. The thud you can hear is the sound of jaws dropping at MCC: India’s first cheerleading squad is about to high-kick its way into the venerable sport of cricket. The Challengers will be playing the Kolkata Night Riders, a side backed by Shah Ruck Khan, a Bollywood megastar, in the inaugural match of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a six-week contest that has attracted the world’s best players with bumper pay cheques, and shaken the sport’s establishment to the core.

It seems assured that cricket’s old guard will not know what has hit it. The Redskins cheerleaders have promised to deliver an entirely novel form of motivational dance — a blend of traditional all-American cheerleading moves and Indian “Bollywood hip-hop” steps, to add razzmatazz to the IPL.

Donald Wells, the Redskins’ entertainment and cheerleading director, said: “This fusion of dance backgrounds has created a new amazing style. I am really looking forward to the reaction of India towards the Redskins cheerleaders. What we are doing is cutting edge and it’s great to see that we are going to start this squad off on the right foot.”

Mr Wells is also helping to coach a group of locals who will lead the cheering after their mentors have returned to the United States.

Candidates will be picked through the first professional cheerleader auditions to be held in India. The decision to tap America’s talent for hype is a characteristically flamboyant move by Vijay Mallya, a liquor baron and owner of the Bangalore team.

When Mr Mallya bought his home city’s side at auction for $111.6 million in January, it joined a portfolio of trophy assets that already included a 311-foot yacht once owned by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor; a South African game lodge; a stud farm; the Kingfisher beer brand; a Scottish whisky distillery; and India’s first Formula One racing team.

However, his decision to pull out all the stops in publicising the Challengers’ first match also highlights the commercial anxieties that threaten to undermine the IPL. In January, the television rights to the competition were sold by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the organising body, for $1 billion (£500 million), to confirm India as cricket’s financial superpower. The auction of eight newly created city sides raised another $720 million.

Now the team owners have to make good their investments by selling tickets, advertising and merchandise. But not all is going smoothly. India’s television news channels plan to boycott the championship because they are unhappy with the amount of footage being made available to them.

Shahrukh Khan, who is rich, but not rich enough to forgo returns on his investment in his Calcutta side, expressed horror last week that only a handful of tickets had been sold for his team’s games.

Experts say it is too early for the team owners to be panicking, but that the Redskins cheerleaders will be a welcome boost. “The pieces seem to be in place,” Jitendra Singh, the dean of Nanyang Business School in Singapore, said. “Big-name, deep-pocketed sponsors; big cricket stars; much publicity. Now the matches need to get going.”

Source - timesonline - Top ^