Tata comes as a saviour as IPL continues to be a rough wicket for title sponsors

The change of title sponsor for the Indian Premier League from Vivo to Tata will take BCCI’s total earning to Rs 1,124 crore for the next two seasons, instead of Rs 996 crore.

The Chinese mobile brand had committed Rs 996 crore - Rs 484 crore for 2022 and Rs 512 for 2023 - for two years. Now, it will pay the BCCI Rs 454 crore, including 6% assignment fee for both years as an exit plan.

On the other hand, the new title sponsor Tata is estimated to pay Rs 335 crore per year - Rs 301 crore will be the title rights fee and an additional Rs 34 crore as an incremental fee for additional matches. With the addition of two teams, the IPL will have 74 matches this season instead of a 60-match season.

Although BCCI has earned more in the process, for the two seasons for Tata Group is Rs 326 less than what Vivo was scheduled to pay.

Similar was the case for Dream11 which got the title sponsorship rights for Rs 222 crore in 2020 when Vivo dropped out as title sponsor owing to heightened border tensions between India and China.

Ironically, after the first sponsor DLF, no brand has been able to complete the five-year term as the title sponsor of the world’s richest cricket league.

IPL launched with DLF as the title sponsor of the tournament in 2008 and the real estate giant completed the full five-year term. DLF had paid Rs 40 crore per year as the sponsorship fee.

Pepsi bagged the sponsorship rights from 2013 to 2017 for Rs 79.4 crore per year. However, the beverages company dropped out of the deal after three years in 2015 citing issues relating to the governance of the IPL.

Vivo came to the rescue of BCCI and agreed to pay Rs 100 crore per year for the remaining two years of the deal.

The Chinese mobile manufacturer won the five-year title sponsorship rights at Rs 440 crore a year from 2018 to 2022, which was 4.4X of the fee paid for two previous seasons.

However, Vivo had to skip IPL 2020 season following heightened border tensions between India and China. Then Dream11 came to the rescue and paid Rs 222 crore for one season.

After dropping in 2020 from the five-year sponsorship deal, Vivo was supposed to be the title sponsor till 2023.

“This time, the company wanted to terminate the deal and it was decided to bring an Indian company on board as the title sponsor,” a source in the BCCI said.

“This is indeed a momentous occasion for the BCCI IPL as the Tata Group is the epitome of global Indian enterprise with an over 100-year-old legacy and operations in more than 100 countries across six continents,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah said in a statement.

“The BCCI, like the TATA Group, is keen to promote the spirit of cricket across international borders and the growing popularity of the IPL as a global sporting franchise, bears testimony to the BCCI’s efforts. We are truly happy that India’s largest and most trusted business groups have believed in the IPL growth story and together with the Tata Group, we will look to take Indian cricket and the IPL forward to greater heights,” Shah added.

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