Viacom18 signs up thirteen streaming sponsors for IPL

Viacom18 has roped in 13 streaming sponsors for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, sources privy to the development told ET. The company holds digital rights to the IPL and will be streaming all 74 matches of the tournament for free to all internet users on its JioCinema app.

Sources also said that the sponsors include Dream11, Parle, ET Money, TVS, Puma, Mondelez, Kamla Pasand, ITC, and Pepsi. Besides these names, the company has also locked in sponsorship deals with brands from consumer electronics, e-commerce, auto ancillary, and four-wheeler categories.

Apart from sponsors, the company has also roped in multiple spot buyers. Viacom18 is expecting close to over 500 brands to advertise during IPL live streaming.

The sponsorship and ad deals closed by the company is worth ₹2,700 crore. "These ad deals are 1.5-1.6 times the ad revenue earned by Disney+ Hotstar from IPL last year," a top company official said on condition of anonymity.

As reported by ET earlier, Viacom18 has set an ambitious ad revenue target of ₹3,700 crore. The outlays from co-presenting will be in the ₹175-250 crore range. In the case of associate sponsors, the outlays would be anywhere between ₹40-60 crore.

The cost per mille (CPM) for a 10-second mid-roll ad is ₹200. The pre-roll ad will have a CPM of ₹225 for a 10-second ad. For connected TV (CTV), the ad rate is ₹6.5 lakh per 10 seconds for a live match.

The company is allowing advertisers to target audiences based on geo clusters, states, devices, age, premium audiences, cities, gender, and language.

Viacom18 has signed up Sizmek by Amazon as a preferred ad measurement partner for IPL.

The partnership will help Viacom18’s advertising clients to validate reports of the campaigns that they run on Jio Cinema through Sizmek's measurement protocols for impression & click tracking and geo-location.

Viacom18 will be offering IPL in 4K resolution with a multi-cam feature on JioCinema. The matches will be available in 12 languages including English, Hindi, Marathi, Bangla, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Odia, and Gujarati across all telecom operators.

The company, which plans to spend Rs 400 crore on marketing the property, has roped in MS Dhoni as their brand ambassador. Apart from Dhoni, Viacom18 has also roped in Suryakumar Yadav as JioCinema’s brand ambassador.

Viacom18 wants to cash in on Dhoni and Yadav’s popularity to articulate its vision of making digital as the platform of choice for sports viewing in the country.