India remains the biggest market for cricket. ICC World Cup 2019 is no exception with a major sponsorship and media rights revenue coming from the Indian market and brands.
The International Cricket Council has lined up 20 brands as the Commercial Partners for the World Cup in England and Wales. A total 30% – six – of them come from India. That is the might of Indian brands’ domination in global cricket.
MRF Tyres, also the official sponsors of ICC Cricket rankings, Beer brand Bira 91, India’s premier whisky brand Royal Stag, digital fantasy sports platform Dream11, Bengaluru-based sports business company Gaames and Britannia Industries are the leading Indian brands with the commercial association for the ICC World Cup 2019.
Two other Indian brands – Kent RO and Amul – will also mark their presence in England and Wales during the May 30-July 14 World Cup as the respective sponsors of Sri Lanka and Afghanistan Cricket teams, marking the first occasion for an Indian corporate to have endorsement deal with an overseas team on the big stage of the ICC World Cup.
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“The ICC World Cup is the Olympics of formal cricket. To that extent, India has emerged to be the nation with the largest viewership. With the kind of numbers cricket generates in India, ICC World Cup makes eminent sense for marketers,” says Harish Bijoor, brand and business strategist and owner of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
The list, besides the six Indian partners, includes Japanese automobile company Nissan, Chinese smartphone Oppo, Booking.com, Emirates Airlines, MoneyGram, app-based taxi service Uber, Coca-Cola, GoDaddy, Hublot watches, Australian winery Wolf Blass, Swiss bank UBP, Thatchers, Champagne Veuve Cliquat and Pakistan’s discount debit cart Golootlo.
Beyond the brand associations, ICC’s Broadcast partner Star Sports remains an Indian entity. Star India owned Star Sports in 2014 had committed then an unprecedented ₹ 11,880 crore for the global media rights of the all ICC events for an eight-year cycle between 2015 and 2023. The deal includes exclusive live and highlights rights across all platforms for ICC major events – the ICC Cricket World Cup and its qualifiers, the ICC Women’s World Cup, the ICC World Twenty20 and its qualifiers, the ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup.
The World Cup is also generating the best gate money from the India matches. The India-Pakistan match tickets remain the most expensive with the minimum denomination for the June 16 match at Old Trafford, Manchester, starting from ₹ 77,000. In spite of the high price, the India-Pakistan match tickets were sold out within 48 hours from the start of the online sales.
Over 80,000 Indian fans are expected to attend the ICC World Cup 2019 in England and Wales.
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