CHENNAI: Over the last few days, there was confirmation from sources as well as within the Indian cricketing establishment that real money gaming companies have already stopped sponsoring the ecosystem, top to bottom, post the president's assent to the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025. A look...
Has Dream11, My11Circle stopped sponsoring Indian cricket properties?
Yes, they have. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) confirmed to this daily they are now actively on the lookout for title sponsor. They are expected to release a tender soon with regard to the same.
What all were they sponsoring and what happens to those properties? Smaller leagues to suffer
They had their hands in multiple pies across both national teams as well as in the IPL and state-level T20 competitions. In the very short term, the BCCI have begun discussions about needing to onboard a title sponsor before the beginning of the Asia Cup in two weeks' time. They can get creative and have a short-term partner before revising sponsorships next year. There maybe a short term hit to the bottom line but they can afford that. A more extreme step would be playing the men's Asia Cup as well as the women's World Cup without a title sponsor.
A bigger worry would be what happens to some of the state T20 leagues as they were also taking money from real money gaming ones. They were thriving because the system was flush with their cash. They were able to afford big salaries and also signed some A-list coaches. These coaches in turn developed some of the players into overnight sensations in the IPL (Digvesh Rathi, Priyansh Arya, Varun Chakravarthy and so on). These leagues a) acted as a feeder system to the IPL with some of them even going onto make their national debuts. If this ecosystem within the ecosystem is crippled, what happens to the players still waiting to be found? Cricket will ultimately find a plug and play solution but how soon will it arrive?
What's the likely impact going to be?
In the long term, all Indian cricket will likely find other companies to sponsor properties. In the short-term, though, it's anybody's guess. Santosh N, managing partner at D and P advisory, an independent valuation company, made the point to this daily that the firms which can afford to sponsor Indian cricket has come down. "I'm sure there will be other brands," he said. "But there are now fewer brands. From that perspective, there would be some term impact." The dreaded Trump tariffs also will be a deterrent for many companies to sponsor India team.
What are options in terms of industries they can go to?
Since the pandemic began, the kind of new industries BCCI has attracted has been edtech, real money gaming and, for a period of time, crypto. Will older players comeback in a big way? Mutual funds are always a safe bet and they may well up their stakes (Sachin Tendulkar anyway sells them during Indian cricket matches). Insurance companies, automobile firms (Hero has had a significant screen presence for two decades) can enter the space vacated by real money gaming firms.
What's in it for them?
At least two India v. Pakistan games (three if you want to count the likely possibility of them clashing in the men's T20 World Cup early next year) in the next month. A prominent space during the women's home 50-over World Cup. But, the biggest factor, is this — the IPL showed itself to be a commercial behemoth even during something as devastating as a pandemic. It's recession proof and the bubble has shown that it's not about to burst anytime soon in terms of its commercial value.
