The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has awarded the title sponsorship rights of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 to fantasy cricket league platform Dream11. With this year’s title sponsor Dream11 have made a three year winning bid to bag the IPL title rights, and has outbid education-technology platforms Byju’s and Unacademy to win the race.
Dream11’s winning bid was Rs 222 crores for a year. According to outlook’s unconfirmed sources say Byju’s and Unacademy bids were substantially lesser to Dream11. Byju’s and Unacademy are already associated with BCCI as Indian cricket team sponsors and official partners of IPL, respectively.
The duration of the sponsorship is until 31 December, which means that even if the IPL (scheduled for United Arab Emirates (UAE) from 19 September to 10 November) by any reason get postponed/suspended, Dream11 would still be its title sponsor until the end of this year.
The IPL 2020 title sponsorship fell vacant after Vivo, which had signed a 2000-crore-plus five-year deal (2018-2022) with BCCI, withdrew after the Boycott China campaign gathered steam in the wake of the India-China standoff at Galwan Valley in Ladakh in June.
In the wake of all the controversy surrounding Chinese investments in Indian sports, especially cricket,the BCCI has underlined that “Dream 11, essentially, is an Indian start-up with single-digit Chinese investment that is negligible and can be resolved internally.”
On the contrary when the BCCI asked for bids for the IPL 2020 title rights last week, it had clearly said: “For the avoidance of doubt, it is clarified that BCCI shall not be obliged to award the Rights to the third party which indicates a willingness to pay the highest fees in the course of discussions/ negotiations with BCCI after submitting an EOI.BCCI’s decision in this regard will also depend on a number of other relevant factors, including but not limited to, the manner in which the third party intends to exploit the Rights and the potential impact of the same on brand IPL as also the fan/viewer experience, which will be examined/ evaluated by BCCI in the course of discussions/ negotiations with interested third parties who submit an EOI.”
Since Dream11 was the highest bidder of the lot, it is the title sponsor for this year’s IPL