IPL’s Mumbai Indians Continues To Be A Sponsorship Magnet

Despite a bleak global economic climate due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reigning IPL champions, Mumbai Indians, have secured a raft of new sponsorship deals, ensuring their sponsorship revenue matches last season’s figures.

Ahead of the upcoming season, the franchise multi-year announced deals with hotel operator Marriott Bonvoy, toothpaste giant Colgate, Cadbury Dairy Milk and whisky brand William Lawson. It said the deals were agreed earlier this year, ahead of the original IPL start date in April.

These deals add to a sponsorship slate that includes the likes of Kotak Bank, Samsung, Kingfisher, Jio, TV channel Colors, audio consumer electronics brand boAt and local home appliances brand Usha.

A major new deal sees Cadbury Dairy Milk replacing fast food giant Burger King as the sponsor visible on the non-leading leg of players’ trousers.

In a press release, the team stated, “The strong mix of international and Indian brands…has enabled the title-holders to match their last years’ sponsorship revenues, continuing to be the market leaders among IPL franchises”.

It added, “Contrary to the market apprehensions surrounding sports sponsorship due to the current pandemic, Mumbai Indians commanded a premium owning to its on-field success, balanced with non-controversial off field brand stature”.

Mumbai Indians have also been active on the digital fan engagment front, with the launch of ‘MI Live’, a live studio featuring in-depth match analysis and fan interaction across Facebook, X as well as Jio TV.  With mobile gaming popular in India, they have also launched ‘Paltan Pay’, a mobile game to be played during live matches and allows fans to compete against each other by predicting analysing the matches and making predictions.

Other digital initiatives include ‘Virtual Wankhede’, an online service backed by Indian online clothes retailer Myntra, that allows fans to connect via video conference as they watch matches from home while ‘MI Buddy’ is an interactive WhatsApp chat bot that fans can speak to and receive information and content about the team including live scores, squads, player stats, videos, interactive games and GIFs.