MUMBAI: Ahead of next month’s Indian Premier League player auctions, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has reportedly issued (or is set to issue) a fresh invitation to tender for IPL’s title rights.
That would make sense considering that the title sponsorship contract that sports fantasy platform Dream11 won for the 2020 edition of the IPL officially came to an end on December 31. And while the BCCI would certainly LIKE to welcome smartphone giant VIVO back as title sponsors for the thirteenth season of world cricket’s richest annual tournament (Rs 4.4 million per season is not money to be sneezed at after all), that looks like a no-no for two reasons.
Firstly, of course there is the well publicised point that having a Chinese brand as title sponsor of the country’s biggest sporting property in the current socio-economic climate would invite a severe backlash. Then there is also the not so well publicised point that this has afforded VIVO a convenient “get-out of jail” route to exit what this website considers is a seriously over-priced sponsorship deal. More so considering that VIVO is now well established in the Indian marketplace.
For the record, when Dream11 won the race to replace VIVO as IPL title sponsor last year, their payout commitment at Rs 2.22 billion was just over 50% of what the Chinese brand had been paying.
It is also worth noting that the five-year contract that VIVO signed for the IPL title rights in June 2017 was to run from August 1 2017 to July 31 2022.
Meanwhile, the auctions are set to take place in Chennai after the completion of the second Test between India and England.
