BCCI Extends it’s Ongoing Partnership with Paytm

The BCCI has announced that e-commerce giant, Paytm, has sponsorship rights for all cricket matches played in India for five years.

The mobile payments brand signed a deal worth??326.80 crores payable over a period of four years. The winning bid of 3.80 crore far outweighed the previous per match value of 2.4 crores. Back in 2015, Paytm penned a deal with the BCCI for title sponsorship rights of Indian team for a sum of?203.28 crores.

Board of Control of Cricket in India chief executive, Rahul Johri said, ?I?m pleased to announce Paytm as the BCCI home series title sponsor. Paytm is one of the new generation companies of India and we at the BCCI are proud of Paytm continuing its long-standing commitment with Indian Cricket.”

The Indian Cricket team will kick off their home season with South Africa touring the country. That series is said to consist of three T20s and three tests beginning from 15th September.

Speaking about the contract renewal,?Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive, Paytm, said,?“We are excited to continue our long-term association with BCCI and the Indian Cricket Team. Our commitment to Indian Cricket gets stronger with every season. India loves cricket and we at Paytm are the biggest fans of it.”

Prior to this, education and learning app Byju’s, succeeded Oppo India as the official Team India sponsor. Byju’s contract is set to commence from 5 September, 2019 until 31 March, 2022.

According to some experts, cricket is insulated from everything that is happening with the economy. This was evidenced by companies willing to spend significant amount of marketing and sponsorship money.

?The sponsorship deal Paytm has won in 2015 has worked well for them which is why they have paid a premium to retain these rights. Clearly, the brand is trying to establish a national footprint and nothing works better than cricket in India. The deal is a testament to how strong a platform Indian cricket is today. Any brand that has got big bucks cannot afford to not leverage cricket which includes popular properties such as Indian Premier League (IPL),” said Indranil Das Blah, chief executive of Kwan Sports.