Pay-television broadcaster Star India has so far agreed deals with nine sponsors for its coverage of this year’s Indian Premier League T20 cricket season, generating Rs900 crore ($126m). The company is aiming for Rs3,000 crore ($420m) in total this season, a 40-per-cent increase on last season.
The sponsors signed up to date include mobile phone maker Vivo, Coca-Cola India, Amazon, payments app PhonePe, fantasy sports operator Dream11 and car sales firm Maruti Suzuki.
Star India ousted rival Sony Pictures Network India as the main IPL broadcast rights-holder in 2017, securing the global television and digital rights for 2018 to 2022.
The Economic Times reported that Star earned Rs1,750 crore from IPL advertising in the 2018 season and Rs2,100 crore in 2019. Star also monetises the rights by airing matches on its pay-television channels.
The news service said Star’s asking price for a 10-second spot around the IPL, and for an advertiser booking advertisements for the whole 60-game tournament, is Rs12.5 lakh ($17,500). Prices rise by 10 to 15 per cent for advertisers that book half the tournament. A co-presenting sponsor position costs between Rs120 and Rs125 crore and an ‘associate sponsor’ position costs in the range of Rs60 to Rs80 crore.
Star is offering lower-priced advertisements aimed at smaller businesses on its Hotstar OTT service.
Gautam Thakar, chief executive of the broadcasters sports arm Star Sports, said: “This is the third year of IPL for us and we had two pretty strong years in terms of both growth in viewership and growth in revenue. We will continue to expand on our learnings and focus on our getting more audience.”
This season’s IPL, the 13th edition of the tournament, begins on March 29 and runs until May 24.
Star provides coverage in Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali languages.