Dream11 bags team India jersey sponsor rights at base price of Rs 358 crore

As the lead sponsor, Dream11 will have its logo on the front of the jersey of Indian men’s, women’s, and U-19 cricket teams.

Dream11 was the only serious contender in the race as Disney Star was the only other company that picked the tender document, one of the people said.

A top executive with a sports marketing firm blamed exorbitant base price set by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for the poor response to the jersey sponsorship race.

“The base price set by BCCI was lower than what Byju’s (previous lead sponsor) paid, but it was still very high,” the executive said on condition of anonymity. “Consequently, not many companies were interested in participating in the bidding.”

BCCI had set a base price of Rs 3 crore per match for the bilateral matches featuring India and Rs 1 crore per match for International Cricket Council (ICC) and Asian Cricket Council (ACC) events.

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The base price worked out to Rs 358 crore for the 150 matches that Team India will play in bilateral and multi-team events during the sponsorship rights cycle.Edtech company Byju’s, which was the lead sponsor till March, was paying Rs 5.07 crore per match for domestic matches featuring Team India and Rs 1.56 crore per match for ICC and ACC tournaments.

The Indian cricket board had barred betting, crypto-currency, tobacco, and real-money gaming companies from bidding for the lead sponsor rights.

The tender for the national team lead sponsor rights was released on June 14, while the last date for purchase was June 26.

Sources in the advertising industry told ET that advertisers are still cautious when it comes to making big-ticket investments. The exit of new-age categories from the sponsorship field has also queered the pitch for BCCI.

In 2019, Byju’s replaced mobile handset maker Oppo to become the jersey sponsor of the Indian cricket team. After bagging the jersey sponsorship rights for five years for a whopping Rs 1,079.29 crore in March 2017, Oppo exited the deal by transferring its sponsorship rights to Byju’s.

According to experts, Oppo and Byju’s sponsorship bids were outliers that did not accurately reflect the state of the industry.

The CEO quoted above claimed that a price correction was inevitable.

GroupM South Asia head of sports, esports, and entertainment Vinit Karnik recently told ET that an estimated Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 2,500 crore worth of on-ground sponsorship inventory across the Indian Premier League (IPL) and bilateral matches will become available this year.

According to GroupM India Sports Sponsorship Report 2023, the Indian sports industry’s advertising revenue surged 49% to Rs 14,209 crore in 2022 and is expected to reach Rs 16,000 crore in 2023. The agency believes that the sports industry’s ad revenue could potentially reach Rs 20,000 crore by 2025.