Mobile marketplace and digital payment services firm Paytm has won the title sponsorship rights for all international and domestic cricket matches played in India.

Paytm will pay ₹203 crore to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for acquiring title sponsorship for all the 84 matches — Tests, one-day internationals and T20s — that India will play till 2019. In addition, the domestic Ranji competition will be known as the ‘Paytm Ranji Trophy’.

Paytm also plans to invest another ₹500 crore in sports related initiatives, including hockey, in the next four years.

Shankar Nath, Senior Vice-President, Paytm, told BusinessLine that the firm will pay ₹2.42 crore for every international match hosted by the BCCI. The first home series will be against South Africa, in September.

“We are a young brand and this association works well for the company. We will also be investing heavily in sports-related activities and promote other sports such as football and hockey,” said Nath.

Micromax loses out Paytm, owned by One97 communications and founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, won the bid against home-grown mobile handset maker Micromax. Micromax had won the title sponsorship last year at ₹2.02 crore per match.

“Micromax’s bid was not even opened after they had failed to submit proper documents required for being eligible bidders. So, their bid document was not opened and Paytm won the bid unilaterally,” a marketing committee member told PTI.

Asked to elaborate, Marketing Committee chairman Chetan Desai told PTI: “The bid document specifically mentioned that the bidding should be done by a consortium. Micromax said it had a consortium but when they filed the documents there was no mention of it. So, their bid document was not opened.”

Speaking to BusinessLine , a Micromax official, however, denied there were issues with the company’s documents. He said the company simply lost to the higher bidder.

Paytm recently received $635 million from China’s internet consumer giant Alibaba. The deal with the BCCI is an attempt to catapult itself into the big league with other e-commerce brands such as Flipkart and Snapdeal. Paytm also has the backing of former Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata. Paytm currently has two businesses, Wallet and e-Commerce. The wallet business rakes in about 60 per cent of overall revenues, while e-commerce accounts for the rest. Sharma expects the e-commerce business to contribute 60 per cent by the year end.

Related Topics