Sahara India?s termination of its 11-year-old sponsorship deal with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) may adversely impact the company?s brand image and bring down the consumers? association with it, say marketing consultants and brand strategists.?
They say that although the Subrata Roy-owned diversified business house with assets worth $23 billion runs many businesses including finance, media and real estate, cricket was its most ?transparent? venture, giving it great mileage and brand value.?
?When you sponsor a team which is constantly on television, you get an opportunity to remind consumers of your brand name,? says Ramanujam Sridhar, chief executive officer of Brand-Comm, a brand building and consulting agency.?
?For the ?Sahara Group, which is not into customer-centric businesses like FMCG or telecom, there?s very little scope for advertising otherwise,? he says.
Despite its interests in other sports like Formula One where it owns a 42.5% stake in Vijay Mallaya?s Force India, and hockey where it sponsors the Indian national hockey team, its snapping of ties with the BCCI, and withdrawal of its ownership of IPL team Pune Warriors, means an exit from a mass sport like cricket, which is a ?religion? in India.?
?The aura and mileage Sahara got from cricket won?t come from any other sport,? says Santosh ?Desai, chief executive officer of Futurebrands. ?People acknowledged the fact that Sahara supported Team India through thick and thin.??
Sahara said it has invested R600-700 cr in Indian cricket since 2001. Analysts, however, believe the amount to be ?more substantial?. After it renewed its sponsorship agreement in July 2010, the company was to pay R3.3 crore per match to the BCCI till December 2013. It had outbid Bharti Airtel to regain Team India?s sponsorship rights.?
While Sahara supremo Subroto Roy ruled out possibilities of any reconciliation with the cricket board, industry insiders say this is a ?lovers? tiff? which will be resolved amicably. ?Sahara has gained a lot out of Indian cricket,? says Desai. ?They will surely be back to cricket within 2-3 years.??
On the other hand, for the cash-rich BCCI, finding a new team sponsor may not be a difficult task. Until it finds one, Sahara will continue to pay its sponsorhsip fee for the next 2-4 months, which includes the tri-series in Australia.
?The BCCI is one of the richest sports bodies in the world and finding a big corporate to sponsor the team won?t be an issue,? says Harish Bijoor, chief executive officer of Harish Bijoor Consults, a consulting firm that specialises in brand and business strategy. ?Some names are already floating around.?
According to market sources, cellular service provider, Vodafone India, may emerge as the front-runner. ?Vodafone sponsors many cricket teams across the world and has a strong association with sporting events,? says Brand-Comm?s Sridhar.
The company, however, gave no specifics on the same. ?We?ve not evaluated it and there?s nothing on the table right now,? said Kumar Ramanathan, chief marketing officer, Vodafone India. Other telecom companies like Bharti Airtel, which had pulled out of the BCCI-promoted Champions League T20 last year citing poor viewership, cannot be ruled out either.
?Airtel can come back knowing well that India will play mostly home tournaments in the next couple of years which guarantee a good number of eyeballs,? says Sridhar. Airtel had even bid for the sponsorship rights in 2009, but eventually lost out to Sahara.
?The telecom sector is replete with big advertisers and Team India?s sponsor has to be one of them,? said a sports analyst on the condition of anonymity.
Some analysts say Indian business conglomerates such as Mukesh Ambani?s Reliance Industries, whose cash pile is estimated to reach R1.25 lakh crore in March this year, and the?salt-to-steel conglomerate?Tata Group, with revenues at $83 billion, may also take up Team India?s sponsorship duties. ?The blue Tata logo will fit in beautifully with the blue Indian jersey,? says Bijoor.?
However, he belives that this change of sponsor at a time when the team is going through a nightmare overseas will be an ?image hit? for the BCCI. ?The Sahara logo was a part of Indian cricket?s furniture and the team will look bald without their branding,? he says.
