MUMBAI: Bowing to the inevitable, the BCCI confirmed Thursday that Vivo has dropped the baton on title rights for the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League.
The Indian cricket board sent out a one-line statement on Thursday afternoon, stating: “The BCCI and Vivo Mobile India Pvt Ltd have decided to suspend their partnership for Indian Premier League in 2020 (emphasis ours).”
Does this mean that Vivo could come back as title sponsors from the 2021 edition on to complete the three years of the Chinese smartphone major’s contract that is still remaining to run? It would certainly be unprecedented if that proves the case, for from this perch, walking away from the deal altogether makes way more sense as the brand is getting zero value from the sponsorship in the current climate (and in any case has seriously overpaid for said rights).
While no other details were provided other than the one-line statement, it is worth noting that on the official IPL website, the report announcing the dates of tournament, which was originally filed on 2nd August, has been reworked with references to Vivo removed, both from the text as well as the accompanying image.
Which of course makes sense seeing as the world’s richest annual Twenty20 tournament has no title sponsor at the moment. For the BCCI, the immediate priority is to organise a “fire sale” for the IPL title rights in what are the worst possible market conditions to be floating a tender for one-year title rights to what remains the world’s highest valued annual cricket property by a very long mile.
Having said that, the harsh reality remains that there is a Rs 4.4 billion hole (what Vivo was paying per annum) that the BCCI has to fill, and fast. Getting a sponsor to cover for even 50% of that would be a challenge, SportzPower believes.
As for possible names that have cropped up, the strongest are education app and BCCI team sponsor BYJU’S, e-commerce giant Amazon, food and beverages behemoth Coca-Cola and telecom major Jio. If asked to make a punt however, SportzPower would be LEAST likely to lay a wager on Jio is about as far as this website is willing to stick its neck out.
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