Paytm keeps BCCI's title sponsorship rights for Rs 327 Cr

Digital payments major Paytm has once again acquired the title sponsorship rights for the BCCI International and Domestic matches. The firm will continue to hold the rights for all bilateral series played between 2019-23.

The winning bid was at a price of Rs 326.80 crore to be paid for the 2019-23 home season. For 2015-19, Paytm had won the winning bid at around 203.28 crores. In terms of per match value, this is a 58% incremental from Rs 2.4 crores in the previous season to Rs 3.80 crore for the current season.

Apart from title sponsor, Byju's had recently replaced Oppo to become team sponsor of Indian cricket til 2022 and the world’s leading sports brand, Nike is the kit sponsor since 2005.

To cut its losses, Oppo had backed out after making a winning bid of Rs 1,079 crore for the jersey rights in March 2017 for five years, reassigning the rights to edtech unicorn Byju’s. BCCI incurred no losses in the deal.

Proud to partner champion of champions — Indian cricket.
Thank you @BCCI , you and us @Paytm make a great team ! 🇮🇳 https://t.co/k1rBF7APQg

— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) August 21, 2019

In April 2018, Star India got five-year BCCI media rights contract for $940 million (Rs 6138 cr). Global, as well as local conglomerates such as Facebook, Google, Amazon Prime, Reliance Jio and Airtel, had also participated in the bid.

This is quite interesting for the Indian startup ecosystem where two unicorns from different space are backing the Indian team on home turf as well as overseas. The duo had already expanded their footprint in the international market.

At one hand Paytm boss Vijay Shekhar Sharma always express his interest for cricket through social media, on the other hand, Byju's founder took his top-performing employees from across functions and experience levels to the UK for the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

India team is scheduled to play the West Indies in the first Test in Antigua from August 22.