Register
to get articles and more to your inbox
News & insights
Archive
Directory
Major Handset Players Battle For IPL Title Sponsorship
As Vivo’s two-year term comes to an end, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has set the base price for its flagship property’s title rights at US$18.6m, almost 50% more than the previous deal. This price hike has been largely attributed to the recent blockbuster deal which the BCCI scored with Chinese handset brand Oppo for a five-year deal with the Indian national team.
Earlier in March, Oppo signed up with BCCI, outbidding Vivo by a whopping US$47m with a record-breaking US$162m deal over five years; a fee which was twice the base price of US$81m.
Insiders believe the new IPL deal would add between US$116.3m to US$139.6m to the BCCI’s already massive coffers over the next five years. Looking at the previous IPL title sponsorship deal in 2012, Pepsi had agreed to pay ~US$71.8m over five years but had prematurely severed its ties in the third year after the tournament was beset by spot-fixing and betting scandals. Vivo then outbid Alibaba’s e-payment subsidiary PayTM to replace Pepsi, shelling out almost US$34.5m for the remaining two years.
Vivo is tipped to bid aggressively to retain the IPL rights in what looks like a tit-for-tat for when it lost out to Oppo in the Indian national team bid…
While cricket has often been an effective tool for brands to reach Indian masses, the astronomical sums for these sponsorships coupled with unoriginal logo slapping campaigns mean that the brands aren’t fully utilising the rich potential of this sport.
