ESPN signs Rs 500-crore mega-ad deal

With live cricket action back on television, leading sports broadcaster ESPN India has sealed its biggest on-air advertising deal in recent times, worth nearly Rs 500 crore, or around a third of the overall ad revenue earlier expected to be generated on cricket in this financial year. ESPN has signed on over 30 leading advertisers. The latter have bought on-air time across ESPN, STAR Cricket and STAR Sports to advertise during the telecast of two important coming cricket fixtures—ICC Champions Trophy and the Airtel Twenty20 Champions League.
These include both sponsorship and spot buy deals. It has signed the sponsorship deals with brands like Maruti, Samsung, Tata Motors (commercial vehicles), Bajaj Auto, Havells, Phillips, Pepsi, Bharti Airtel, Coca-Cola, and Raymonds, sources in the media agencies confirmed. It has also sold spots (10-second advertising time) to Sony India, Adidas, Mirc Electronics, Raymonds, Yahoo and Aviva, among several others.
While the ICC Champions Trophy will see the top eight ODI teams, including India, battling it out in South Africa (from September 23 to October 5), the BCCI’s international Twenty20 format—Airtel Champions League will be played in India between October 8 and October 23. Both these cricket tournaments are likely to generate nearly 50 hours of on-air advertising time, of which ESPN has already booked over 90 per cent inventory, sources say.
ESPN is likely to pocket around Rs 210-220 crore in ad revenue from the 15 one-day internationals to be played in the ICC Champions Trophy, while it may generate Rs 250-260 crore in ad revenue from the Airtel Twenty20 Champions League, that will have 19 T20 matches.
The Airtel Twenty20 Champions league will have teams from India, Australia, England, Sri Lanka, West Indies, New Zealand and South Africa battle it out for becoming the top T20 league team.
“For the Airtel T20 Champions League, ESPN has roped in Coca-Cola as the on-ground beverage partner, while Pepsi will be advertising on-air. It had already roped in Airtel as the title sponsors for the tournament in a five-year deal,” a source in a leading media agency said.
When asked, a spokesperson of ESPN India declined to comment on the specifics but said: “We have aggressive targets and we are confident of meeting them.”
This is second biggest on-air advertising deal on cricket this financial year, after nearly Rs 400-450 crore was committed by advertisers on the Indian Premier League (IPL-II) tourney in April-May this year.