In a path-breaking deal, the Indian Premier League (IPL), the premier Twenty20 Cricket tournament, has tied up with Google’s YouTube to stream the forthcoming IPL Season 3 matches practically world-wide. This is new! For years, cricket was aired on TV and now for the first time, live, legal internet streams will be available. But how will this impact the big TV investments? Sony Entertainment, rechristened Multi Screen Media (MSM), paid a record Rs 8,200 crore ($160 M) in March 2009, for a nine-year exclusive television rights deal, to air IPL matches in India. Amidst the increasing popularity of IPL Twenty20 cricket during Season 2, Sony Max even raised its asking price for 10-second advertising spots from $45000 to $70000.  

I think the ambivalent concerns about the IPL-YouTube deal eating into Sony’s local Indian television advertising revenues during Season 3 are unfounded. YouTube is unlikely to affect TV viewership in India. Despite the vast strides made in Internet penetration in India, the low bandwidths mean that few Indians will watch IPL cricket on the web.
Instead, the IPL-Google will make geographical boundaries irrelevant for the global cricket fan. Cricket fans as far flung as Japan and Germany, including yours truly in Montreal, Canada will be avidly glued to their computers. For years, expatriates living and working away from India were forced to either settle for text-only commentaries on Cricinfo or guiltily forage for illegal, unreliable cricket streams on the Internet. 

The live streaming of IPL on YouTube will help create buzz and excitement around the league and involve an increasing fan base overseas. The behind the scenes advertising revenue arrangement between Google and the IPL league will leave their investors smiling. To summarize, the democratization of cricket streams seems like in a win-win scenario.

 
 
The Business Standard has snippets of how Indian business has spread its footprint across the globe during this last decade. 



 
 
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According to a special report in the Economist, car sales in China now exceed those in America. I believe China was not expected to exceed the US market for several more years. It seems that the speed with which the recession has affected consumers in America, combined with incentives from the Chinese government to help buyers have accelerated the trend.
No wonder all the world’s auto makers are established on the mainland. Most arrived less than a decade ago. All are racing to keep apace of demand. Meanwhile, one of the top domestic automobiles is the tiny QQ, made by Anhui’s Chery. The day is not far when cars manufactured in China will get exported across the globe.