Dream11, Airtel, Coke, Asian Paints, Pepsi, Tata and Vivo are among the main sponsors, said sources privacy to the matter.
IPL 2023: Disney Star makes deals with 55 brands and 11 sponsors
IPL 2023 is quickly approaching, and according to people familiar with the situation, Disney Star has already secured 11 sponsors and more than 55 businesses. These include Dream11, Airtel, Coke, Asian Paints, Pepsi, Tata, and Vivo, among others. Although the broadcaster remained mum on the specifics, exchange 4media has been given confirmation of the situation from credible sources.
Moreover, it has been discovered that the 55 firms that have signed the agreements come mostly from industries including fantasy gaming, beverages, telecom, Fintech, insurance, automobiles, online delivery, consumer durables, paints, FMCG, and travel. Details on presenter and co-presenter sponsors, as well as several other arrangements, were still being discussed, according to a source. At the time this report was filed, exchange4media contacted Disney Star for comments but did not receive a response.
Last week, Disney Star made the first IPL telecasts on its free-to-air channel Star Utsav Movies since the network acquired the Broadcast rights to the competition. The action is anticipated to significantly increase Disney Star’s audience in the rural market. This year, Jio has given them competition, therefore the broadcaster is acting shrewdly and thinking of novel strategies to attract more businesses. As the competition draws closer, one should anticipate the number to surpass 75, according to a second industry expert. By airing the IPL on FTA channel, Disney Star will draw in more mass-market businesses. Disney Star will this year transmit 12 of the games on it’s free-to-air channel Star Utsav Cinema for the first time since purchasing the TV rights to the Indian Premier League five years ago, in yet another effort to reach mainstream brands.
According to sources at Star, the move intends to provide a hitherto untapped audience cohort the chance to experience the high-quality material Star Sports now makes available solely to its Pay TV members. “Disney Star hopes that many of the FTA viewers, based on their viewing experience of this material, will transfer to Pay TV, enabling this universe to develop further from its existing base of 168 million connections (BARC Statistics),” a representative stated. Industry insiders point out that this might possibly be Disney Star’s plan to thwart Viacom18 Sports’ decision to stream the competition for free on Jio. According to experts, this is also a tactic to boost viewing and draw in businesses that appeal to large audiences.
“This will aid them in luring FMCG companies that serve consumers in tier two and tier three areas. The change won’t have any impact on high-end or even mid-segment businesses, though, because FTA channel subscribers might not be large spenders, according to a media planner. Media rights have been sold to two distinct networks for the first time in IPL history, and both parties are doing all in their power to draw sponsors and increase income.
Disney Star is seeking both corporate and small and medium company (SMB) advertisers this year in an effort to increase ad income and broaden the advertiser base. They also announced selling their regional stream separately to small local marketers at the beginning of last month. They had never done this previously, according to a different planner. Sports18 earlier in January declared that it will offer free IPL streaming in 11 regional languages. The Jio app will offer the matches for free, and it will do so in 11 other languages, including Bengali, Tamil, and Bhojpuri.
In response, Karan Taurani of Elara Capital asserted that the decision was largely motivated by audience growth pressure that Star may have expected as a result of the IPL’s availability for free on Jio Cinema as well as owing to a general fall in the Pay TV household base. This is a wise move by Star since it may prevent the decline in the number of Pay TV homes (an annual loss of 3%, or 5 million households), which would be more than offset by the addition of 35–40 million FTA consumers. This will provide Star versus Jio Cinema a competitive advantage and enable overall viewership to approach 500 million, bringing it in line with what Jio Cinema has been offering marketers, he continued.