Reports: Baba Ramdev's Patanjali likely to bid for IPL 2020 title sponsorship after Vivo's exit

Ahead of the much-awaited IPL 2020, scheduled to start from September 19th in the UAE, Governing Council had hosted a meeting to take several decisions over the tournament. In the meeting, it was decided that the board will retain all the sponsors including Vivo for the upcoming IPL.

However, the BCCI’s decision didn’t go down well as the Indian board was lambasted by fans for continuing with Vivo as the title sponsor of the league. Considering the stern relations between India and China, many fans called for a boycott of Chinese companies operating in India, including Vivo. The border stand-off between both the countries has resulted in their relations getting sour in the past few weeks.

After the uproar on social media, Vivo pulled out as the title sponsor with all the negativity around its name. Vivo’s exit led to many Indian companies stepping into the race of acquiring the IPL 2020 title sponsorship. According to reports, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali is also considering to put in a bid for the title sponsorship.

“We are considering the IPL title sponsorship for this year since we want to give the Patanjali brand a global marketing platform,” Patanjali spokesperson SK Tijarawala confirmed to Economic Times about Patanjali considering to put their proposal in front of the BCCI.

Ever since Vivo’s exit, many companies have reportedly shown interest in the title sponsorship

However, market experts believe that the brand lacks the star power of a multinational company. “Patanjali as a title sponsor for IPL will do more for Patanjali than for IPL. While the caste hierarchy among brands could play out, Patanjali owning the title sponsorship would be contextual from a nationalist perspective, since there is an enormous anti-China sentiment prevailing in the country,” said brand strategist Harish Bijoor.

Ever since Vivo’s exit, reports have suggested that many companies like Jio, Amazon, Tata group, Dream11 and Byju’s have stepped in the ring. Recently, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly had also reacted to Vivo’s departure, saying that it shouldn’t be called a financial crisis.

“I wouldn’t call it as a financial crisis,” Ganguly had said while speaking during a webinar organised by Learnflix. “Big things don’t come overnight. And big things don’t go away overnight. Your preparation for a long period of time gets (you) ready for losses, gets you ready for successes.

“You keep your other options open. It is like Plan A and Plan B. Sensible people do it. Sensible brands do it. Sensible corporates do it. BCCI, it’s a very a strong foundation – the game, the players, the administrators in the past have made this game so strong that BCCI is able to handle all these blips,” he had added.