Advertisers shun Champions League T20

NEW DELHI: The upcoming Champions League Twenty20 tournament, billed as the clash of top clubs of the world, is finding is hard to lure advertisers despite its official broadcaster ESPN roping in Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan for a power-packed promotion.

With less than a month left for the second season of the Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20) to take off in South Africa from September 10-26, big advertisers such as Havells India, Onida and LG have decided not to spend on the tournament.
On the other hand, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo are yet to decide on whether to sign up for sponsorships or advertisements during the event.

"This year we have not initiated talks with ESPN yet. We are worried about the success of the format. It is a new concept and there are teams people do not know about," Havells India VP Marketing and Communication Vijay Narayanan told PTI.

Havells was one of the ground and on-air sponsors last year for CLT20. "Even taking ad slots is not commercially viable," he added. Citing similar reasons, Mirc Electronics, which makes the Onida brand of electronics and appliances, has decided to stay away this year. Onida was the umpire sponsor in the last edition of the CLT20.

"We have decided not to sponsor this time. It is not timed properly according to us," Mirc Electronics General Manager Marketing Anand Ramadura said.

"Even for the ad slots, we will buy only if we see excitement building," he added. Onida is understood to have spent around `2 crore on CLT20 last year.

LG, another big spender on cricket, is also not enthused with the CLT20 this time.

"We are neither sponsoring or advertising during the league as it got a very low television rating point (TRP) last year," LG Sales Head Amitabh Tiwari said.

Even big spenders on cricket events such beverages majors PepsiCo and Coca Cola are still mulling engagement with the CLT20. When contacted a PepsiCo official said: "We are yet to decide."

ESPN, however, is upbeat about the CLT20 and said it is in the process of finalising advertisers.

"We are currently in talks with a lot of advertisers and are in advanced stages of negotiations. We are confident that we will achieve our revenue targets for Airtel Champions League Twenty20 this season and we will announce further details at an appropriate time closer to the tournament," a company spokesperson said.

ESPN is not leaving any stone unturned to promote the league. It has not only increased its marketing budget four times to `45 crore, but also roped in Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan to promote the event.

Last year, Airtel had signed as the principle sponsor for ten years with the league and Samsung has renewed its sponsorship this year.

Champions League Twenty20 is an international Twenty20 cricket competition between top club teams from India, Australia, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and the West Indies.

Despite having international teams playing, the format has not been able to reach at par with the Indian Premier League telecast on SetMax channel, both in terms of viewership and excitement among companies.