MEETING THE MONEY MEN

Met up with a number of investors in the Tendulkar Opus this evening. As you can imagine, an Opus costs a fortune to produce, so we’re very grateful for their backing and we try to keep them in the loop on developments.

The meeting took place at the Opus Store in Covent Garden, London, the first dedicated Opus shop. It opened in December, and it’s a great place to view the full range of Opuses already published, as well as some stunning artworks and photography on the walls.

First, myself, Opus Marketing Director Michael Sawyer and the Opus Store’s Corporate Sales Director Nicky Stock, took a small group each and showed them an Opus. I was on the Tottenham Hotspur Opus, which I edited. The two investors with me had never seen an Opus ‘live’ before and they were amazed by the scale of it and quality of the images. I always find that. You simply can’t understand why an Opus is so special without seeing it, experiencing it.

As Sir Bobby Charlton once said, “It takes an hour-and-half just to turn through all the pages of an Opus”, so we could only show our investors a fraction of the content in the time available, but it’s fair to say they were blown away.

Then it was time for my presentation of where we are with the Tendulkar Opus and our future editorial plans. Pretty nerve-wracking stuff, standing in front of a dozen hard-nosed businessmen. I felt a bit like someone pitching on Dragon’s Den, but as time went on, the nods of the head and smiles told me they liked what they were hearing. Indeed, by the time we opened up to questions from the floor, they were buzzing with their own ideas on things we could do. It was great to discover that the majority of the investors were passionate about cricket and admirers of Tendulkar. This isn’t just a financial investment for them, they are genuinely interested in the project.

At the end of the meeting, one chap gave me his business card and offered to put me in touch with a famous veteran cricket photographer who he happens to play golf with. Apparently, he has an archive of excellent photographs of Sachin which have never been published for. Just the sort of exclusive content we’re always looking for…

THE BEST LAID PLANS…

The terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Lahore has not only nixed the chances of the Indian Premier League being held in India this year, it’s also affected our plans.

Today it’s been confirmed, quite understandably, that the 2009 IPL wil now take place in South Africa. It’s going to be a huge logistical problem to relocate such a mammoth event to another country at such short notice and I don’t envy the job of the organisers.

In comparison, our problem is trivial, but we’ve also had to change tack. For the past few months, we’ve been working with Sachin’s agent Vinod Naidu to find a window in the ‘Little Master’’s busy schedule for a media day to officially launch this website and publicise the forthcoming Tendulkar Opus.

First, we were looking at a date in December, in a gap between the India-England Test matches. Then the terrorist attacks on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai happened and that idea was out the window.

The next date pencilled in the diary was April 9, in Mumbai, on the eve of the IPL tournament. This would allow Sachin a few days off with his family following the New Zealand tour and ensure maximum global coverage as the world’s cricketing media would be in town for this exciting competition. Perfect for him, perfect for us.
The venue was set. The Taj Hotel. Yes, I know what you are thinking, but it is actually the best equipped hotel in Mumbai for hosting an event of this magnitude. And, of course, security has been tightened up since December.

So we were all set. And then Lahore happened. Like the IPL, though, the show must go on. In our case, we’ll have to wait a couple of months though…

MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISE

Production of the Tendulkar Opus is a truly a multinational operation. I’m based at the headquarters of Kraken Sport & Media in London, where myself and our team of designers, picture researchers and sub-editors lay out and edit the pages.

Our picture editor Russell Lee is making contact with photographic agencies worldwide in search of the best images of Sachin, whether in action or in quieter moments off the pitch.

We have the services of OHub Limited, a team of repro experts (or ‘digital origination’ as they prefer to call it) in Edinburgh, Scotland. In layman’s terms, their job is to make the images that appear in the Opus looks as pretty as possible. The scale of the Opus means that we are displaying images at a far larger scale than normal, and OHub have the skills and state-of-the-art equipment to ensure every image is reproduced to the highest specification. I’ve worked with quite a few repro houses over the years, and OHub are the best in the business.

Naturally, the main focus of our research is India, and we have a growing network of people working for us there. For instance, in Hyderabad, we have an office with eight employees dedicated to maintaining and updating sachintendulkar.com.

On the Opus, our chief writer Dileep (Premachandran) is working with Sachin on personal editorial content for the book. Dileep flew out to South Africa the other day to cover the IPL. When Sachin gets some time out from the frenetic action, they will be getting together to relive some of the key moments in his life.

Sachin’s career shows no sign of slowing down so it is a matter of working around his schedule, but he’s very committed to the Opus project and does his best to find time. Indeed, he’s agreed to set aside a couple of days for us in June when he’s in London. We’ve got some exciting plans… all top secret for now. But when we can tell you, you’ll hear it here first.

DATE IN THE DIARY

The date has been confirmed – ‘An Evening with Sachin Tendulkar’ will take place at the Opus Store, Covent Garden, London, on June 11.

We spoke to Sachin’s agent, Vinod Naidu, this morning and Sachin has agreed not only to meet the world’s press and invited guests in the evening, but also to make himself available throughout the day so we’ve got a great opportunity to both generate content for the Opus/Opus website and gain worldwide publicity. It’s great timing because the eyes of the cricket world will be on the World T20 championship in England.

Aside from the event, I’m looking forward to meeting Sachin, Vinod and the other head honchos from the World Sports Group (the company that look after Sachin’s business interests) in person at last. We’ve discussed our plans for the Opus and Opus website on the phone and via email, but it will be great to sit down, brainstorm together and work out a schedule.

GOING DOWN THE TUBE

The day before our day with Sachin. Everyone on the Opus team is running round like maniacs to make sure all bases are covered. But there’s just one thing out of our control which could completely scupper our plans - the London traffic.

Last night with perfect(ly awful) timing, Tube drivers on the London Underground began a 48-hour strike. Consequently, today, it’s absolute gridlock on the roads around central London. If it’s the same tomorrow, Sachin could be spending a lot of time in a traffic jam and our tight schedule of interviews and photo shoots could be out the window.

Go to bed with a hundred things on my mind.

SACHIN HITS TOWN

Sachin has arrived in the UK. He doesn’t play international Twenty20, but he’s in London because he owns a house here and him and his family like to come to England for a break from the intense spotlight he’s under in India. Naturally, he gets recognised by the many cricket fans in the London, but he can get around town, go and see a movie and have a family day-out without getting mobbed.

Far be it from us to disturb Sachin while he’s getting a well-earned rest, so while he’s chilling out we get on with preparing for June 11. We’ve got a full schedule of events planned for Sachin during the day, including a school visit in the morning and one-on-one interviews with four premium titles – luxury men’s mag GQ, leading English cricket magazine The Wisden Cricketer plus The Independent and The Times newspapers – to publicise the Opus and website.

RSVPs are flooding in from newspapers, magazines and TV stations, keen to find about more about the Tendulkar Opus. Space is at a premium, so only a few invited guests will be allowed to attend, plus two lucky winners of a competition to meet Sachin we are running with The London Paper.

We will have a cameraman with Sachin all day to record events for this website, a webcam operator plus our two superb Opus photographers, Andy Cantillon and Russell Lee.

Meanwhile, Kraken’s events coordinators, Dipesh Davadra and Hannah Cocking are taking care of the many logistical issues that go into organising a high-profile event like this – everything from making sure there will be enough seats for the pressmen to organising security on the door, booking cars to ferry Sachin and the whole Opus team around on the day to sourcing suitable caterers to provide gourmet canapés for the evening.