Wimbledon Eyes Indian Market, Leveraging Cricket's Popularity to Ace Tennis Engagement

Wimbledon, the prestigious tennis tournament, is strategically expanding its reach into the Indian market, capitalizing on the nation's deep-rooted love for cricket. While acknowledging cricket's dominance, Wimbledon seeks to collaborate and create engaging experiences for Indian audiences.

Indian cricket icons such as Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, and Sachin Tendulkar have been frequent visitors to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), the host of the Wimbledon Championships. Rohit Sharma's photograph on Wimbledon's Instagram garnered a record-breaking 4.5 million likes, highlighting the potential for crossover engagement.

Brendan Dinen, Head of Marketing at Wimbledon, emphasized the collaborative approach: "Cricket is much loved and certainly king for Indian audiences. So rather than trying to compete with that, I think it's about trying to find interesting ways to collaborate. Both sports are rich in heritage... so I think there's interesting ways to be able to bring that to life for audiences, so that they might want to come and watch it as well."

Strategic Initiatives for Indian Engagement

Wimbledon is implementing several key initiatives to connect with the Indian audience:

• Influencer Engagement: Partnering with Indian social media influencers to provide unique Wimbledon experiences, documented and shared with their followers.
• Cross-promotion with Cricket: Collaborating with broadcast partner Star Sports to create tennis-cricket crossover trailers during the Indian Premier League (IPL).
• Leveraging Cricket Star Power: Inviting prominent Indian cricketers to the Royal Box, capitalizing on their vast social media presence.

Targeting a Younger Audience

Recognizing the importance of future generations, Wimbledon is focusing on engaging younger audiences through targeted content and platforms.

"Younger audiences and audiences of the future are crucial to us. It's clear in the activity that we focus on and our content strategy, whether that's for Instagram, YouTube and the sort of content we create," Dinen stated.

This strategy includes:

• Creating engaging content for social media platforms.
• Collaborating with influencers and content creators.

Embracing Technology and Innovation

Wimbledon is embracing technology to enhance the fan experience and reach new audiences. This includes:

• AI-powered Match Chat: An AI assistant on the Wimbledon app and website that answers fans' questions during live matches, providing immediate responses and match analysis.
• Virtual Reality Experiences: Exploring opportunities in gaming and virtual reality platforms like Roblox to bring the Wimbledon brand to life in innovative ways.

Despite the challenges posed by the monsoon season, Wimbledon is exploring options to host events in India and is partnering with PVR INOX to broadcast the finals in theaters, ensuring that the tennis fever reaches every corner of the nation.