One97 Communications owned Paytm has purchased the rights for title sponsorship from the BCCI for all home series to be played in India till 2019, reports NDTV. Paytm will pay Rs 2.42 crore per international match hosted in the country, of which 84 matches are already scheduled. This comes to around Rs 203.28 crore, without counting any matches that might be scheduled in the future.
.@Paytm gets title sponsorship rights for India home series for 4 years. Winning bid was at a price of INR 203.28 Cr pic.twitter.com/ie4yhaLFFp
— BCCI (@BCCI) July 30, 2015
Note that this is BCCI’s first partnership with a digital company for sponsorship. Previously, smartphone maker Micromax held the rights for a year, after STAR group and Sahara held the rights in the preceding years. These sponsorship rights do not include rights to the IPL tournament and are exclusive to international (test, ODI and T20) matches played in the country. Interestingly, according to this Hindu report, the Ranji trophy will now be known as Paytm Ranji trophy.
The sponsorship rights include, “sponsor branding of the relevant series with the title sponsor logo, official designation as the ‘Title Sponsor’ of the relevant international or domestic Series, visibility at the stadium during both international and domestic matches, broadcast sponsorship rights, and a host of other rights.” Basically, Paytm will be able to advertise itself on player t-shirts, on the boundary rope, cricket grounds and hoardings near the boundary etc.
Paytm funding: In February this year, Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba Group’s affiliate company Ant Financial Services, which operates the online payment solution AliPay, acquired 25% stake in One97 Communications for an undisclosed amount. A source-based report in January had said that AliPay would invest $575 million for a 30% stake.
Post the fundraise, Paytm itself has funded a few companies. These include the hyperlocal on-demand transport & delivery services provider Jugnoo, which raised $5 million in a series A round of funding led by Snow Leopard with participation from Paytm last month, and the hyperlocal deals marketplace ‘Little’ that raised $50 million from Paytm and other investors earlier this week.
Image source: Flickr user Partha Bhaumik
