IPL 2020: From Vivo to Swiggy, details of the deep China connect of Indian cricket

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Bengaluru, June 20: The IPL Governing Council on Friday night (June 19) tweeted that they have decided to revisit the sponsorship deals with Chinese firms and there will be a meeting to this end next week.

The tweet came a day after BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal stressed that Vivo would continue as the title sponsor of the IPL for the time being because the governing body needed to go by contractual obligations. The Vivo's deal with IPL, bagged by for Rs 2199 crore in 2018, runs till 2022.

But is it easy for BCCI to snap ties with Chinese firms or with sponsors who have Chinese back-up? With Vivo the BCCI has the most direct deal through IPL, but there are several other sponsors that has Chinese links. Paytm, a payment app, is a main sponsor for tournaments held within India and domestic cricket and official umpires partner has strong link to Chinese finance. The Paytm has more an investment of 37.15 per cent from Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce giant.

Vivo is a smartphone giant with its base in China and their sister concern Oppo had also sponsored Indian cricket team's jersey for two years from 2017. It has been reported that Vivo and Oppo jointly share a massive pie of Indian mobile phone market and six out of 10 smartphones getting sold in this country belong to these two brands.

Dream11, the IPL's online fantasy league partner since 2019, is another entity with strong Chinese connection as they use the services and investment of Tencent, internet giant from across the border. Similarly, Swiggy, the popular food delivery app, is an associate sponsor of the IPL and they too have investment by Tencent. In Swiggy, Tencent has a minor stake at 5.25 per cent while it is much bigger in Dream11.

Byju's, who bought the jersey sponsoring rights of Indian cricket team last year for Rs 1079 crore for a five-year term, too has a Chinese connection. Similar to Swiggy and Dream11, the Tencent Holdings conglomerate has pumped in millions into this Bengaluru-based Learning App.

These are contracts inked for long-term and a sudden severance will be ridden with clauses and the BCCI will be taking a long and hard look at them before arriving at any decision.

It is understood that the BCCI will immediately look into Chinese firm's presence in the IPL through Vivo, Dream11 and Swiggy. The BCCI believes that both Byju's and Paytm are essentially Indian brands and in the case of Byju's they have several other investors like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Pearson Global etc.