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Global sportswear giant Puma has inked a strategic multi-year partnership with Royal Challengers Bangalore as the official kit partner ahead of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League.
With this Puma becomes the only global sportswear brand to be currently associated with an IPL team as a sponsor.
The brand had associated with other IPL teams in the past but is now coming back as a team sponsor to the T20 league after a break of nearly eight years.
Talking on the timing of the association, Abhishek Ganguly, Managing Director, PUMA India and Southeast Asia said, “Over the last few months, sport has had a positive influence by bringing about a sense of cheer among our consumers. We are committed to fuelling this passion by continuing to invest in the right products, partners and players in the sporting ecosystem.”
Under this partnership, Puma will have exclusive retailing rights for RCB’s replica jerseys and will also launch the take-down jerseys at more affordable price points.
The wide range of collection will also include fanwear merchandise range of polo tees, shorts, pants, flipflops and caps as the company hopes to leverage on the partnership beyond the traditional sports sponsorship model. The brand hopes to build a strong pan-India reach for the merchandise across retail stores and e-commerce channels.
“We believe our association with RCB will strengthen our presence in the teamwear category. The organised team merchandising segment has nearly doubled in its size in the last two years to about Rs 60 crore. Our aim is to fuel the growth of this category further and we believe there is a significant potential for this category for us as a brand in the coming years ,” Ganguly added.
RCB merchandise will be available at all PUMA stores, on puma.com RCB website, mobile app and the RCB Bar & Café from the first week of April.
“Over the years, we have seen IPL grow into a much larger sporting property with a strong traction across various consumer groups. We have also reached a stage as a company in India where our business and distribution has grown significantly. We have over 370 exclusive stores and strong partnerships with national, regional and local retailers and a very strong Puma.com business . So we felt this was the right time to come back and leverage on the fast-growing team sponsorship market,” Ganguly added.
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