Thread by @jaideepjourno

What's the first thing you notice when you look at an IPL jersey?

It's the number of sponsor logos, right?

Have you ever wondered why there are so many logos and how IPL team sponsorships work? 🧵

Each IPL team can sell as many as 10 spots on its jersey for sponsor logos. Each spot comes with its own prestige and cost, depending on visibility on camera.

A front-of-jersey deal, the most prestigious, can cost anywhere from ₹25-30 crore a year, depending on the team.

The back-of-jersey and right-upper-chest deals go for ₹10-15 crore, and so on.

Apart from jersey sponsorships, brands can also become official partners, where they can associate with a team without having their logo on the kit. These deals cost ₹80 lakh-₹3 crore per year.

Over the last few years, another category has come in—content partners. Here, brands can sponsor a team’s in-house media properties such as RCB Insider, MI TV, and DC TV. These sponsorships are cheaper—₹40-50 lakh per year.

This season, the 10 IPL teams have locked up sponsorship revenues of around ₹800 crore in total, earning anywhere between ₹70 crore and ₹100 crore each, according to reports.

livemint.com/sports/cricket…

Unsurprisingly, five-time champions Mumbai Indians led the way with ₹100 crore in sponsorship revenue this season, followed by four-time winners Chennai Super Kings, who got ₹90 crore. Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals weren’t far behind, with ₹85 crore each.

But have you ever wondered what an IPL team sponsorship comprises? It’s not just about sticking a logo on a jersey and shooting a commercial with the cricketers. It’s a 360-degree campaign, the planning for which begins months in advance.

In fact, for a franchise, the sponsorship process for a particular season begins right after the previous season ends, according to sports marketing executives I spoke to. As for the brands, they begin gearing up for the IPL after Diwali, around November.

This week, in my #sportsbiz newsletter The Playbook by @TheSignalDotCo, I decided to do an explainer on how the IPL team sponsorship industry functions. It's an absolutely bonkers industry! You can check it out and subscribe to The Playbook for free here:

theplaybook.thesignal.co/p/ipl-team-spo…