As VIVO returned as the sponsor for the 2021 edition to pay the pre-designed 440 Crore per year, the BCCI was already in for a bigger net profit after receiving only 222 Crore from Dream11 last year. With Upstox slated to pay 45 Crore this year, the profit will be 260 Crore more than last year.
Due to the political tension between India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the market sentiment in India for the Chinese companies was at an all-time low, with the call for bans gaining traction. VIVO thus decided to take themselves off for a year, only to be replaced by Dream11 who paid almost half the price VIVO was paying to the BCCI.
However, they were legally obliged to honour the contract, thus BCCI would go back to their old model and now they would be paid as much as 440 Crore from the VIVO deal alone. Now with Upstox, a digital brokerage firm, which has Ratan Tata among its primary investors, joining as an official partner, the tournament’s sponsorship pool will bring in excess of Rs 260 crore more this year compared to the previous one.
“We are thrilled to partner with the IPL. The tournament has paved a bold new direction to Indian cricket in the last decade. This is what sparks a natural connection between us,” Upstox CEO Ravi Kumar said, reported TOI.
Currently, Dream11, Unacademy and CRED are already on board the IPL as the other official partners along with Tata Motors but the BCCI is expected to bring in a few more names to the roster. Given the tournament once again will be played behind closed doors, it will bring open for e-business platforms to find advertising opportunities.
“If you look at the 2020 edition, e-education and fantasy sports platforms had hogged the advertising space. Expect more players in the e-business industry to make an attempt to grab this space this year,” say those tracking developments.
