The infamous line, ‘Winter is Coming’ in the series, Game of Thrones referred to the trouble coming. Interestingly, Winter has set in the advertising and marketing world and the first victim of this is the Indian Premier League, which according to a study by Elara Capital, the IPL has witnessed a significant drop of approximately 30-35% in overall revenue. According to industry estimates, the IPL earned an overall revenue of Rs 4500 crore – this is inclusive of traditional and digital. It was expected that this year, the league in total earned revenue of Rs 3,300 crore. “This year will be a difficult year for other leagues such as football, hockey, kabaddi especially when large sponsors such as Internet companies and e-commerce giants have cut down on ad-spends,” a senior sports analyst, on the condition of anonymity, told BrandWagon Online.
Interestingly, Sporta Technologies and K P Pan Foods remained common among the top five advertisers in both IPL 16 and IPL15. In addition, Pan Masala topped IPL16, while it ranked third in IPL15, whereas the topper of IPL15, ecom-gaming grabbed the second position, this season. The top five categories comprising pan masala, ecom-gaming, biscuits, aerated soft drinks and cellular phone service, accounted for 52% of total ad volume during IPL 16, against 39% in IPL 15. Furthermore, according to a report by BARC India, the opening match of IPL 16 witnessed a 40% drop in advertisers as compared to the previous year’s opening match on TV. The opening match of IPL 16 had 31 advertisers whereas the opening match of IPL 15 had 52 advertisers.
To be sure, a set of industry experts opine that compared to the IPL, the money involved in other sporting league are much less. For instance, in 2022, HeroMotoCorp renewed its title sponsorship for a period of three for Indian Super League (ISL). The company reportedly has paid Rs 160 crore. While Chinese mobile company, Vivo signed up for title sponsorship for five years starting in 2017. The league which returned after a gap of two years, had sponsors such as Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles, A23, Dream11, Mfine, Byju’s, Officer’s Choice and Parimatch News. “These leagues traditionally have always received a large chunk of the money from traditional advertisers, however, one can expect a drop in spending from digital companies,” a senior media analyst, who did not wish to be named, said.
Moreover, it is believed that with the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup scheduled between October-November, this year advertisers may release some funds at that time, as it is also clashing with the festive season, which typically sees high ad-spends. According to Elara Capital’s report, India’s Adex growth could be revised downwards to approximately 10-12% including positive impact of the Cricket World Cup to approximately 2% in CY23, from an estimate of approximately 16% year-on-year growth projected by larger advertising agencies. “Since the year is a World Cup year, advertisers would be keen to focus on the World Cup. The money is being spread over because of this. However, there will be a cascading effect on other sports leagues if ad revenues have gone down this year,” Hemant Dua, promoter, Inspiranti Sports, said.