NEW DELHI: The Indian Olympic Association on Thursday announced a sponsorship agreement with MPL Sports Foundation, the community initiative of esports platform Mobile Premier League (MPL), as the IOA’s principal sponsor covering the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games.
A joint statement issued by IOA president Narinder Batra and secretary Rajeev Mehta announced that the sponsorship agreement that MPL Sports Foundation had signed on to was for one-and-a-half years. The agreement effectively runs till the closing ceremony of the Hangzhou Asian Games, which is scheduled to be held on Sunday, 25 September 2022.
“We are delighted to inform you that the IOA has entered a sponsorship agreement with MPL Sports Foundation as the ‘Principal Sponsor’ covering the Tokyo Olympic Games, 2022 Asian Games & Commonwealth Games,” the statement read.
According to the statement, through this sponsorship, MPL will pay a total of Rs 80 million to IOA, and in addition the sports kit for the Indian contingent at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games will also be supplied by them.
“Amul, who has supported us in the previous games also has come forward to support IOA for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Amul’s sponsorship is for Rs 1.00 Crore (Rs 10 million) for a period till 31st December, 2021,” the statement added.
“We are hopeful of bringing such more good news in the coming weeks as the talks are going on with some more sponsors,” the statement further reads.
IOA inked the deals days after dropping Chinese sportswear brand Li Ning as the Indian team’s official kit sponsor for the Tokyo Olympics and stating that the country’s athletes will wear unbranded apparel during the Games.
The Tokyo Olympics is scheduled to begin on July 23 runnimng through to August 8. The mega event was slated to be held last year, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
