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Sports broadcaster ESPN Star has roped in Hero MotoCorp, Tata Docomo and Airtel Digital as sponsors for the upcoming London Olympics broadcast.
The firm, that will be airing the coverage of the world’s biggest sports extravaganza on three of its channels - Star Sports, ESPN and ESPN HD - has sold up to 80 per cent on advertisement inventory.
“There will be three main sponsors for our London Olympics broadcast and the rest will be spot bookings,” Mr Sanjay Kailash, Executive Vice President, ESPN Software India Pvt Ltd told PTI.
He said the company has already signed up Hero MotoCorp, Tata Docomo and Airtel Digital as the three main sponsors with up to 80 per cent of ad inventory allotted to them.
“For the rest we are still negotiating with a number of advertisers,” Mr Kailash said but declined to disclose details saying it could be finalised in the next two to three days.
The games will be held from July 27 to August 12.
The broadcaster has decided ESPN to focus on India specific events and showcase sports featuring Indian athletes, and those sports which are more popular in India such as hockey, shooting, boxing, wresting, tennis and football.
On the other hand Star Sports will air more international events such as gymnastics, equestrian and volleyball, while ESPN HD will be a blend of the above two channels.
Asked about the expected ad revenues from the event, Mr Kailash declined to share details but said “it cannot be compared to the Cricket World Cup held in India”.
“Every hour, we will have 10 minutes of ad time on ESPN, while for Star Sports it will be eight minutes and on ESPN HD it will be five minutes,” he said.
Mr Kailash said the combined viewership of this year’s Olympics of Doordarshan and ESPN could be around 100 million.
Doordarshan has the rights for terrestrial broadcast of the event.
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