Team News Riveting
The ensuing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020) had hit another hurdle as a central sponsor had pulled out from the mega cricket event.
Future Group, which was one of the associate central sponsors for the league, has pulled out from the IPL 2020 at a very last minute. The BCCI officials, who are present in Dubai where the 13th edition of the IPL 2020 would be held, said they were looking for a replacement.
The BCCI was yet to recover from the suspension of VIVO as title sponsor.
Future Group is an Indian conglomerate company founded by Kishore Biyani with headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company is having a significant prominence in Indian retail and fashion sectors, with popular supermarket chains like Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar, lifestyle stores like Brand Factory, Central, etc.,
It was associated with IPL for the last 5 years. The IPL official website has also removed the logo of Future Group from the official sponsors list.
A leading sports portal said that Future Group was paying 28 crore for the Central Sponsorship of IPL every year. Even in IPL 2019, the Future Group was looking to exit the league but later continued with the sponsorship.
The financial position of the group had been cited as possible reason for the exit as retail businesses had been hit hard because of Covid-19. The decision to pull out came just 3 weeks before the tournament starts on September 19.
The BCCI has plunged into serious financial crises after the suspension of VIVO as IPL 2020 title sponsorship deal. The board lost almost 50 per cent on the title sponsorship values as the replacement Dream11 is only playing 222 crore as against 440 crore pledged by VIVO.
