Wouldn’t call it financial crisis, it’s just a blip: Ganguly on IPL losing Vivo as title sponsor

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly has described the suspension of the Indian Premier League title sponsorship deal with Chinese mobile phone company Vivo as just a blip, dismissing talk that it might lead to financial crisis.

The BCCI and Vivo on Thursday decided to suspend their partnership for the 2020 IPL beginning on September 19 in the UAE amid the clamour to boycott Chinese products in the wake of the Sino-India border stand-off.

The title sponsorship is a significant part of the IPL’s commercial revenue, half of which is shared equally by the eight franchises. Vivo won the IPL title sponsorship rights for five years from 2018 to 2022 for a reported sum of Rs 2190 crore, approximately Rs 440 crore per annum.

“I wouldn’t call it a financial crisis. It’s just a little bit of a blip,” Ganguly said during a webinar on Saturday, organised by educational book publishers S Chand Group.

“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.”

Ganguly said the BCCI always has a “Plan B” for these kinds of situations.

“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,” said the former India captain.

“And the only way you can do it is by being professionally strong over a period of time. 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.”

He also talked about the ICC decision on Friday to retain India as hosts for the 2021 men’s T20 World Cup.

“India was designated (to host) the 2021 and 2023 World Cups so there is not a big change in that. Yes, the Covid-19 situation had kept everybody alarmed, but that’’s the way it is.”