NewDelhi August 10:With the BCCI currently looking for new title sponsors for the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Yoga guru Baba Ramdev is considering bidding for the same. BCCI is running out of time to find the new sponsors for IPL 2020 after Vivo sensationally cut their ties with the Indian cricket board for the upcoming edition of the tournament.
In 2018, Vivo had signed a five-year deal with the BCCI but decided to suspend the deal at least for this year. The Chinese mobile manufacturing giant’s decision came just a couple of days after the IPL Governing Council announced it had retained all the sponsors for IPL 2020 including Vivo.
Vivo was in the middle of a social-media storm after IPL GC’s decision. The BCCI and the IPL GC faced criticism for deciding to not cut ties with the Chinese company. There was a nationwide call to boycott Chinese products after the deadly clashes between the Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh in June.
And as BCCI looks out for a company to replace Vivo as the title sponsors of IPL 2020, Baba Ramdev-led Patanjali have expressed their interest. A Patanjali spokesperson confirmed the development, saying that the company wants to give the brand a global marketing platform.
‘We are considering the IPL title sponsorship for this year, since we want to give the Patanjali brand a global marketing platform,’ Patanjali spokesperson SK Tijarawala told Economic Times before adding Patanjali is considering making a proposal to the BCCI.
Apart from Patanjali, several other companies have linked with IPL t00. Recent reports suggested that the likes of Byju’s and Coca-Cola India were interested in bidding for the title sponsorship. The likes of Jio, Amazon, the Tata group, Dream11 and Adani group have been doing the rounds as potential candidates for the IPL sponsorship title too.
Meanwhile, Vivo are likely to return as the title sponsors next year as their deal will end in 2023. The Chinese company pays BCCI a staggering amount of Rs 440 crore a year for the five-year sponsorship deal it signed in 2018.
The thirteenth edition of IPL will get underway on September 19 with the final scheduled to take place on November 10. The entire competition will be played in the UAE due to the alarming coronavirus situation in India.