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PepsiCo will rethink its sponsorship deal with the Indian Premier League if the controversies around the cricket tournament are not resolved soon.
The world’s second largest snacks and beverages company had paid the cricket board Rs 396 crore to buy title sponsorship rights for five years of the IPL starting this year. However, recent allegations of some team owners and players being involved in spot fixing are threatening to break the deal.
Speaking to Business Line , Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo, said, “We are a highly ethical and principled organisation. So we want to associate with organisations that are principled and ethical. We hope the current problems of IPL are short term and they are addressed. But if they are not we will have to go back and rethink”.
PepsiCo’s decision to pay double of what the previous title sponsor of IPL had not gone down well with many analysts. The sudden exit of Manu Anand, PespiCo’s Region President for India and South Asia, in June had also raised speculation that the company may not have got the expected returns from IPL.
“We still think cricket is big in India, it’s a sport which evokes passion and IPL is a great concept,” said Nooyi.
When asked about Anand’s successor, Nooyi, who is on a three-day visit to India, said that there was no concern as the company was in a good position. “We have great guys running the business in India. Sanjeev Chadha (CEO of Asia. Middle East & Africa) knows the Indian market well. I wanted to come to India and dig deep into what I want to do, and that’s why I am here.”
Nooyi said that she was bullish on the Indian market. “India is a country with a huge potential and it remains an attractive, high-priority market for PepsiCo. We want to grow in India, with India, for India. Our growth rate will be higher than the growth rate of the various categories of our products.”
The Indian-American who is considered to be among the world’s most powerful business women said that the slowing down of GDP was a cause of worry but a temporary one.
“At the end of the day, our category is a growth category. Given the low per capita consumption, we think there’s lots of room for growth. It is about making available right products at right price points through right distribution and that’s what we are doing,” she said.
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