Tender for Team India's jersey logo sponsorship to be out soon

What’s the story?

With the current deal expiring in March 2017, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is expected to take out tenders for the sponsorship of Team India to update the logos of the senior, as well as junior and women’s jerseys later this year. According to market experts, a number of digital sponsors to be in the playing field for the bid.

A source close to the BCCI said: “All the sponsors who are attached with BCCI would be interested in grabbing this opportunity. Reliance Jio, for example, would be very keen to use this platform”.

In case you didn’t know…

The current sponsors, Star, took over from Sahara in December 2013, and paid Rs. 1.9 crore per match to the BCCI. Before Star, Sahara, who had been in association with the BCCI for as many as 13 years, used to pay in the ballpark of Rs. 3 crore per match towards the end of their contract period.

A bitter stand-off between Sahara and the BCCI brought an end to the contract, which resulted in the Sahara India Parivar withdrawing sponsorship of Team India, as well as ownership of the Pune Warriors IPL side.

The heart of the matter

The Committee of Administrators (CoA) has cleared the process for tender, which means that the details of the procedure will be made public soon. Rahul Johri, the CEO of BCCI, is expected to receive the details of tender from Vikram Lamaye, who has been given the authority by the CoA on this matter.

BCCI’s current sponsors include Star India and Star Sports, Paytm, Nike, Jana, Hyundai, Pepsi, as well as Vivo, the title sponsor of IPL, BCCI’s T20 brainchild.

What’s next?

Team India is expected to get a new team sponsor just before the Champions Trophy, which starts on June 1. The CoA will meet on February 17 to further deliberate on the matter, and the whole process is most likely to end after the conclusion of the India-Australia four-Test series

Sportskeeda’s take

It is going to be a tight competition between Paytm, who has progressed considerably, especially after its evolution from just another mobile recharge platform to India’s largest mobile payment portal, a graduation that was boosted by the demonitisation move. It is also the current title sponsor.

Reliance, on the other hand, is another strong contender, who has been pitching Jio services throughout the country with their free cellular and data services. Star India, the existing sponsor, is also in contention.