CHENNAI: Right from when the Indian Super League was first announced, the question on everyone’s lips was how was this going to ever be sustainable? Teams were making huge losses, with large amounts spent on players who were clearly past it. Sponsorship was minimal and television revenue was non-existent, with the broadcaster co-owning the league.
So when it was announced that the league was to be held over five months (with 2018-19 going even longer), the whispers turned into chatter. Would teams, especially the ones that did not have a significant support base, be able to adapt? With the season finally done, that answer appears to be yes. While the expenditure of maintaining a squad for a longer period has increased, teams have worked to minimise this spike and utilise the longer period to increase their sponsorship. “We were able to drive better bargains for operational costs, whether it was staying or travelling. On the player side, we actually spent less,” says Delhi Dynamos CEO Ashish Shah. “Delhi is a very tough market for sponsorship, but we were able to convince people on the basis that we were going to be around for a longer.”
The hike in sponsorship revenues, Shah estimates, has been a hundred per cent. And other top officials have similar stories to tell. Gaurav Modwel, president of FC Pune City, estimates that sponsorship revenues for his team has gone up by up to 80 per cent. Indranil Das Blah, CEO of Mumbai City FC, says they have more than doubled their sponsorship amounts.
“The longer season has worked out well. It gave sponsors what they wanted — a longer time to activate,” says Das Blah. “It also helped that our main assets, players, were around for longer so sponsors could use them for activations. We actually more than doubled our sponsorship amounts from the previous seasons.
“We were more mindful of our costs and thanks to better planning, managed to actually reduce costs,” Das Blah says. “Little things like getting the league schedule earlier helped in getting better air fare and hotel rates. We were more judicious with our player spends. Lastly, most of our marketing was concentrated on the digital medium, which is where our target audience is anyways.”
A lot of this is down to a shift in strategy. “We had a very low number,” says Modwel. “We were not among franchises like ATK and Kerala (who have a good base). But this year, we’ve done well. We have about eight or nine sponsors which is a reasonably good number. We have been looking at a lot of local sponsors.”
Thinking local is a strategy visible all across the board. Chennaiyin FC have partners like local restaurant chain Vasanta Bhavan and Centre for Sports Science of Sri Ramachandra University, while Kerala Blasters have Kalliyath, a Kochi-based construction company.
And while the noises have been almost unanimously positive, some still believe the league still has a lot to evolve before the term ‘sustainability’ can be thrown around. “I still think structural changes have to be made,” says Modwel.
vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com