Global Cricket Ventures (GCV), the joint venture between Live Current Media (LCM) and Netlinkblue, appears to believe that their application will do better out of the Facebook ecosystem,  than within it.

The game, once hosted at http://apps.facebook.com/fantasycricket/ has been moved to www.cricket.com. Cricket.com is among Live Current Media’s portfolio of premium portals, which also includes boxing.com, perfume.com and karate.com (related story here), among others. LCM had bought the cricket fantasy game for $25,000, with an additional performance dependent payout of  $10,000. The game was live during the Indian Premier League, when I first saw it. LCM claims to already have more than 750 registered team entries “in the first 24 hours of operations”, but…aren’t they just teams that have been ported from Facebook? Global Cricket Ventures has also appointed Alex Chamberlen as Chief Revenue Officer, who moves from competitor Cricinfo.com. Chamberlain has the Global Head of Sales for Cricinfo, from Sept. 2004 to Aug 2007, and has 15 y ears of media experience.

(also read: BCCI Gets Restraining Order Against Online Fantasy Cricket League, Rediff; Why Rediff?)

*

LCM had bought exclusive portal rights to the Cricket tournament Indian Premier League (IPL), and the rights to manage the portal for the governing body BCCI, for $50 million for 10 years. Promoting Cricket.com was a part of the plan, but that hasn’t been implemented, until now. According to their SEC filing for the last quarter, revenues for the first season were immaterial. This is probably because the deal was announced just a few days before the season began, giving them a couple of days to get the IPLT20 portal up and running. And, signing these deals were expensive:

The Company has incurred substantial costs relating to negotiating and performing under the terms of the MOUs with each of the BCCI and the IPL, and establishing the venture with NLB.  During Q2 of 2008, these costs totaled $678,222 (Q1 of 2008 – $55,317) including, but not limited to, expenditures for business development, travel, consulting, and salaries. Not that the expenses are going to reduce: On or about October 1, 2008, the Company is scheduled to make a payment to the BCCI in the amount of $625,000 and a payment to the IPL in the amount of $375,000, in connection with the Global Cricket Venture.

I wonder if GCV and LCM will survive the IPL.

Related:
- BCCI.tv Launched By Global Cricket Ventures, A Live Current Media – NetlinkBlue JV
- ContentSutra: BCCI Gets Restraining Order Against Online Fantasy Cricket League, Rediff; Why Rediff?
- Nimbus Looking To Raise $140 Million: Report; Nimbus Mobile?
- Sports: ESS Pays $975 M For 10-Yr Champions League T20 Rights; ICL – $110 Spend, Games2Win Tie-UP