This time, the entry of a couple of new teams might provide an opportunity to the brands that want to leapfrog to the IPL bandwagon. This applies to the budgeted brands that have limited budgets, state media planners as well as agencies.
Both the teams have ten sponsorship slots each to sell on the jersey, on the shirt, trouser and cap. None of the teams is pre-committed to any specific brand unlike the case of teams such as Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings that were suspended for two years.
Earlier this week, the Indian cricket board held a reverse auction. In the same, New Rising of industrialist Sanjiv Goenka won the Pune team for a bid of minus Rs 16 crore. The Rajkot team was won by Intex Mobile for a bid of minus Rs 10 crore.
These bid amounts in minus indicate that the two teams will not get any share of revenue from the central pool of the board. However, they need to pay money to the same. Due to this, the teams are expected to go the whole control to reduce the losses.
The national director at ESP Properties, Vinit Karnik, stated that the new teams will not be able to charge a premium price immediately. They might be able to ride the top players from the RR and CSK teams and they can gain traction among the viewers.
Of the eight IPL franchises, Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders earned between Rs 40 crore and Rs 50 crore per year from the sponsorship deals. The other teams including Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils got around Rs 30 crore. The newly joined teams might make around Rs 20 crore to Rs 25 crore per year with sponsorships.
The COO of Professional Management Group, Melroy D’Souza stated that Pune might get better sponsorships than Rajkot as New Rising that got Pune with the low bid among the two teams. Also, MS Dhoni is the highly sought after cricketer in IPL.
He added that this is the first time that Gujarat is taking part in IPL. The state is quite passionate about the sport and it has a huge base of local business houses that love to leverage on the chance given. The local brand and large businesses from the state include Adani, the manufacturers of Morbi, Ajanta and Orpat, the watch makers, and the diamond trading houses at Surat.
