Mumbai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has completed its sponsorship bouquet for bilateral cricket with Muthoot Fincorp, a leading non-banking financial institution from southern India taking up the title rights until March 2028.
The new association will begin with the ODI series against West Indies starting on September 27 in Thiruvananthapuram. The valuation of the deal spanning 35 matches is known to be somewhere in the range of the base price set - ₹4.85 crore per match. An official announcement is still awaited.
Although BCCI was unable to find a leading partner within the deadline set in the first instance, board officials had told its state units during last week’s AGM that an announcement would soon be made. Despite a delay in identifying title partners, Indian board officials were already counting gains from Associate sponsorship, with fresh deals with Campa, SBI Life and ChatGPT worth over ₹130 crore, representing a 44% increase over the previous cycle.
The new set of sponsors come on board despite IPL and ICC world events having evolved into more attractive propositions. Muthoot has previously been associated with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
{{/usCountry}}The new set of sponsors come on board despite IPL and ICC world events having evolved into more attractive propositions. Muthoot has previously been associated with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
{{/usCountry}}This suggests that Indian sponsors operate in a loop across events, with enough suitors still willing to leverage bilateral cricket as a round-the-year property. There isn’t much competition for cricket anyway. According to a recent WPP Media sports valuation report, cricket accounts for 89% of India’s ₹18,864 crore sports economy.
During the 35-match period, India will be playing two marquee five-match Test series each, against Australia (2027) and England (2028). A lot of the upcoming white-ball action is against opponents who have slipped on the performance scale. West Indies (3 ODIs and 5 T20Is), Sri Lanka (3 ODIs and 3 T20Is) and Zimbabwe (3 ODIs).
But advertisers are known to be buoyant on the immediate fan interest stoked by Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s quest for another World Cup title.