LLC most viewed T20 league after IPL in India: Owner Raman Raheja

In a cricket-crazy nation like India, live cricket is always welcomed by fans. The idea of getting former Indian and international legends back into the field has hit a sweet nostalgic spot, as seen from the success of the Legends League Cricket.

The Bridge sat down with the league's owner, Raman Raheja, to understand the thought behind setting it up and what the future of the league looks like.

Excerpts from the interview:

What is the idea behind coming up with a league like this?

Being a cricket fan myself, I always wondered what happens to players after retirement. While some of them are visible doing commentary, coaching and punditry, a whole lot of them disappear from the horizon.

My idea was - what if I bring these players together to create a space for them after retirement and see how it goes. Thankfully, It is working.

Are we looking at the next step after an active international or domestic career for cricketers?

That's exactly the model. This league for legends or masters is quite interesting if packaged right.

There have been formats in the past when they tried to bring in legendary cricketers and masters back onto the field, but probably it was not packaged right.

Maybe we got the formula right.

How does player identification work for LLC?

In T20 leagues scouts are appointed to go and find valuable players for the franchise.

Right now, for us, it's the other way round. We have Andrew Leipus who is our Director of sports science. He has worked with these cricketers and their fitness for many years.

He's a scout in a way. He looks at the legends who retired and have still got the fitness level or are capable of returning to the same fitness level.

So we engage via that network and bring the players into the pool for auction.

If there are some niggles and other issues, he works with them closely. Three months prior, he reaches out to every cricketer and understands how their body is doing now.

He will enquire about their fitness regime and how they were doing and then keep monitoring that. And that's when we start to feel if the guy is good enough, he should be brought in.

A couple of names dropped out, including Dale Steyn, as he had niggle. We can't afford to risk a player as we are looking at competitive cricket.

You said LLC is only behind IPL in terms of viewership in India. Can you elaborate on that?

In terms of viewership, IPL is the benchmark across the world. Most of that cricket audience comes from India, which is the core market we are targeting.

When I say that LLC is the second most viewed T20 league, I am looking at the CPL and Big Bash and all of those competing for the audience in India.

Our numbers from last season have gone up by six times. In the first four games this season we crossed more than 600 million digital footprints across the globe.

The ratings are this good because this is not just an exhibition league for retired cricketers, it is a proper competitive league and our audience base for such competitions is growing.

The ratings very clearly show that fans are loving it and it's pretty humbling to compare to IPL.

Getting established names like GMR, Adani Sportline and Star Sports to associate with LLC. How did it happen?

One of the reasons for this is our vision of no compromises on quality whether it is the cricketers or the brands that we associate with.

When you establish any product, you have a business opportunity around it and these are established names in this business. They understood our vision and the kind of opportunity we are creating.

Before confirming Disney, we were in discussion with top broadcasters of India and eventually landed on one of the best.

Any updates on the expansion of the Legends League Cricket in future?

Well, definitely we are moving to a six-team tournament format. We have more or less finalised on the two additional teams but details will be announced soon.

Next season is still twelve months away, but yes, we will make the announcement on that soon.

In terms of expansion, the primary objective will be to bring in the best cricketing names in. That's the way I would like to expand. Everything else falls into place.

So you have good quality cricketers come in , you have a good pipeline of cricketers, people who are going to see this as an opportunity to extend their playing career outside of the current T20 league format.