The real kick goes up 40 pc

THEY SAID it was inevitable ? in Germany the Cup would clink with the mug, and beer would flow in Berlin's streets. What trendwatchers missed was a replay that is happending in pubs and homes in Delhi and Mumbai.

Published on: Jul 1, 2006, 10:43:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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THEY SAID it was inevitable — in Germany the Cup would clink with the mug, and beer would flow in Berlin's streets. What trendwatchers missed was a replay that is happending in pubs and homes in Delhi and Mumbai.

A remote in one hand and brew in the other — that is the general picture. Even as TAM figures showed that television viewing in Indian metros rose by 175 per cent on match days, beer figures too were bubbling up. In Delhi and Mumbai, the sale rose by 38 per cent.

It began with the kick-off in Munich. With the first game, beer sales jumped 10-12 per cent. And then came the knock-out stage (at World Cup) and the sale of liquid gold rose. It grew by a maximum 38 per cent over the last weekend in soccer-less May.

But in June, they drank to Ronaldinho, said cheers to Crespo and drowned sorrows for Drogba. And ‘they’ don't mean just men. More women are watching the Cup this time: a rise of 19 per cent.

Overall, the 2006 World Cup's viewership rose by 83 per cent over the 2002 one.
With this, soccer took over as the most watched sporting event in India (FIFA ranking: 117) pushing cricket to second spot. That is sporting spirit, uh, spirits.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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