MUMBAI // The Indian Premier League (IPL), which starts its new season next Saturday, has attracted a host of big name sponsors and advertisers despite being plagued by corruption scandals.
Vodafone, Maruti Suzuki, Amazon and Coca-Cola are among the companies with sponsorship deals in place for the world’s richest cricket tournament.
In July, Chennai Super Kings, a team owned by Indian Cements, and Rajasthan Royals, owned by a consortium including the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, were suspended from the tournament for two years because of a match-fixing controversy.
That adds to the controversies surrounding the tournament in past years.
In October, it emerged that Pepsi had withdrawn from its title sponsorship of the IPL, ending the deal two years early. The role was taken over by the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo. The value of Vivo’s two-year deal has not been revealed.
Pepsi had bought the title sponsorship rights for five years for US$71 million, beginning in 2013. That was almost double the amount paid by the Indian property developer DLF for the previous five years. Pepsi never officially said why it walked away from the deal with two years still to go, but it might well have been reacting to the controversies. The brand value of the tournament was $3.2 billion last year, according to American Appraisal India.
Sony Picture Networks, which broadcasts the IPL, in March said it expected to generate advertising revenues of 12 billion rupees from the upcoming season.
On Wednesday, the new IPL team Gujarat Lions revealed that digital-payment solutions company Oxigen Services India would be the team’s title sponsor for the season.
“Since the signing up of Sachin Tendulkar as our brand ambassador, Oxigen has embraced sports as an integral part of its marketing strategy and engagement,” said Ankur Saxena, the director of Oxigen Wallet.
Etihad Airways is continuing its sponsorship of the Mumbai Indians for a third season.
India “is a significant market for the airline and our sponsorship with the Mumbai Indians provides an outstanding opportunity to reinforce our global brand through the country,” said Patrick Pierce, vice president of sponsorship at Etihad.
“All sponsorship decisions are benchmarked against a strict set of return-on-investment criteria, and are consistent with our wider brand values.”
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