DirectRooms.com – Kochi granted access to India’s main cricket league

DirectRooms reports that a new Kochi franchise of cricket players have been given permission to start in the 2011 Indian Premier League (IPL).

The Indi Commandos Kerala from Kochi will now play in the IPL’s fourth season although the team were nearly ineligible to play due to an argument between promoters and the ownership structure.

Each of the teams in the IPL is a franchise with owners bidding to take control of the teams but Kochi ran into difficulties meeting the criteria set out by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The team almost joined Kings XI Punjab and the Rajasthan Royals in having their contracts terminated but were able to comply with the regulations in time.

The players enlisted for Kochi will now join some of the highest paid athletes in world sport as the IPL is only behind the NBA related to the salaries it pays its stars. An average salary is around $3.84 million a year while the brand value of the IPL is estimated to be over $4 billion.

The league starts on 8th April this year and with the new teams, fans can see ten sides playing up to 74 matches which will cause more people to travel to the south of India for games against Kochi and in turn this will result in greater competition for a place at a hotel Kochi Airport (http://directrooms.com/india/hotels/kochi-hotels/airport-price1.htm).

Lek Boonlert, marketing head at DirectRooms commented: “The matches will bring so many more visitors to Kochi and this will affect hotels with places becoming fully booked a common occurrence.”

Contact Information

Lek Boonlert

Head of Marketing

DirectRooms

Contact via E-mail