MUMBAI: The postponement of the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League, forced by the coronavirus panedemic, has provided a silver lining for at least one stakeholder in world cricket’s richest annual tournament.
The Future Group, which in March 2018 had signed on as an Official Partner of the IPL for three years (2018-2020), has chosen not to continue its association. And while some media reports had speculated that the retail giant, which has been straddling high debt and is in the final stages of a sell-off to Reliance Industries Ltd, might even have been penalised for parting ways, that is not the case SportzPower has been reliably informed.
Why? Because the three-year sponsor agreement that the Future Group signed with the IPL in 2018 officially came to an end on July 31. IF the IPL had played out on schedule in its original April-May window, THEN there would have been a penalty that the BCCI could have cashed in on. Now not so, sources in the know of things have told SportzPower.
The exit of Future Group, following on from the forced exit of Vivo meant that the hurried tender, which was won by Dream11 with a bid of Rs2.22 billion, yielded an almost 50% drop in value to the Indian cricket board. It bears noting that the Chinese smartphone brand had been paying Rs 4.4 billion per annum (and will therefore likely not be regretting losing out on).
The Future Group, which operates in Indian fashion and retail sectors, had first become the Official Partner of the IPL in 2017.
