MSM (Multi-Screen Media), the official broadcaster of IPL (Indian Premier League) has managed to rope in nine sponsors for the IPL season eight while the World Cup 2015 is giving a stiff competition. For this league, the firm has signed up Vodafone and Amazon as the presenting sponsors and Hero MotoCorp, Vimal Pan Masala, Pepsi, Intex Mobiles, Paytm and Cardekho.com as the associate sponsors, revealed Rohit Gupta, the President of MSM.
He added that they had eight sponsors in the last year and they might need to increase the slots 12 this time. Although the executive declined to comment on the revenues that MSM expects to generate from the eighth season of IPL, the industry executives indicate that the broadcaster can earn up to Rs 950 crore from the advertising this year. This estimated revenue is cost to that generated in 2013 when there were 76 games in the league. Notably, in 2014, there were 60 games in the IPL and the broadcaster made around Rs 800 crore revenues.
Over the past few years, there have been several controversies surrounding the IPL. Especially, betting and spot fixing scandal was too high in 2013. But, Gupta claimed that the existence of controversies do not keep the audience away from watching the matches. He stated that it is the best cricket that is played as per the viewers and until cricket is good they will not stop watching.
The 2014 IPL is a proof for this as even with many controversies, the elections going on and the first half of the IPL was shifted to UAE, the viewership grew about 7 percent from that of 2013. To be specific, from 175 million, it grew to 192 million.
As per Vinit Kamik, National Director of Sports and Live Events at GroupM ESP, both the World Cup and IPL are important for advertisers. There was never an either-or situation to select between the two. He added that Indians have an appetite for both and the same was made evident in 2011. However, he claims that controversies have had an impact on the brand value of the league.
