Kolkata Knight Riders top the table here..

There is no stopping Shah Rukh Khan. Not even a dismal performance at the Indian Premier League (IPL). Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), the team that the Bollywood star owns, has been rated as the strongest IPL brand with a valuation of $22 million. Delhi Daredevils, owned by GMR Group, walks into the crease at the second spot with a brand valuation of $19 million, according to an evaluation by UK-based valuation company Intangible Business and MTI Consulting, an international strategy consultancy.

The "IPL Brand Value Scoreboard 2009" study, aimed at measuring the strengths of the eight IPL franchises, puts Chennai Super Kings (owned by India Cements) at the third place with $18 million, followed by Mukesh Ambani's Mumbai Indians at $17 million. Surprisingly, Rajasthan Royals, the champions of the inaugural edition and now out of IPL 2, is at the bottom of the heap with a brand value of $10 million. Says Intangible Business international director Richard Yoxon, "Winning games is not enough to build a successful sports brand. Teams need to engage the local community, attract star players who inspire a wide audience and develop a strong marketing communications programme."

The latest released study has pulled down the brand valuation of the IPL teams by almost half from a earlier report by UK-based brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance Plc. Though the KKR team was the most valuable showpiece, its brand value was put at $42.1 million by Brand Finance. This was followed by Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals (See table for comparison). Brand Finance had valued the IPL brand at $2 billion. The study was based on various revenue lines such as broadcasting, IPL sponsorship, team sponsorship, merchandising and gate receipts, the effect of performance, the catchment population of the city, the capacity of the stadium and the presence of iconic players.


So what was the methodology used by Intangible Business and MTI Consulting?

Explains MTI Consulting CEO Hilmy Cader, "Brand values are a reflection of a brand's ability to generate future income. It is a forward looking study that uses historic performance and future trends to predict future activity. 2008 publicly available sales data was gathered for each franchise. To determine the strength of the brands, each brand was scored on a series of attributes that underpin the power and reach of the each brand. These attributes are a mixture of hard measures and soft measures of brand strength sourced from publically available information and from a qualitative panel of cricket fans from each test playing nation. Using this data, each brand was then valued using the relief-from-royalty methodology."

A IndianTelevision News