The yearly cricket carnival may still be a week away but the official broadcaster of the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) — Star Sports will definatley be delighted a lot with the way things have panned for them.
After a season outside India, the IPL is back home and the entire inventory of Star Sports has been sold out – that too, at a price even higher than the last season, when all the viewership records in the history of the league were broken.
In the upcoming season, which will witness 60 games, a record 115 number of brands will be seen across the Star Sports network channels and Disney+ Hotstar during the LIVE broadcast and programming.
Notably of these 115 brands, 18 lie within the sponsor category.
Even when Star had stopped its ad sales a week before the league last year, the total number of brands associated with it were 108, seven less than this year.
The ad sales revenue, which was Rs 3100 crore in 2020 season, which was held in UAE due to pandemic, is expected to cross Rs 3600 crore this year with 115 brands on board.
Not only Star is raking big with the broadcast sponsors but Live Streaming partner Disney+Hotstar has also signed 10 deals already.
For the Live Streaming, Dream11 is the co-presenting sponsor, and Upstox & Vimal Elaichi are co-powered by sponsors. On the other hand, brands like PhonePe, AMFI, Unacademy, Pharmeasy, Livspace, Swiggy, and Parle Agro have been signed as associate sponsors.