The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has signed Mobile Premier League (MPL), an e-gaming company, as Indian cricket teams’ official kit sponsors for three years, it has been learned. MPL has replaced Nike as the sponsor.
A top BCCI source said that the expiry of contract was discussed at a BCCI Apex Council meeting on October 17 and later, after all the council members gave their approval through email, the contract was signed with MPL.
“All the Apex Council members agreed to go ahead with the contract, given that the Indian team’s Australian tour is coming up. To avoid a situation where the Indian team plays a series without a jersey sponsor, we agreed that we should go ahead and whatever best is available in the prevailing market conditions,” the source told IANS.
The Indian team is scheduled to play three One-day Internationals, three T20 Internationals, and four Tests between November 27 and January 19, 2021, against Australia.
The BCCI has, however, not issued a statement so far regarding the signing of the contract with MPL.
MPL, on the other hand, declined to make a comment. “Unfortunately, they have no comments at the moment on this,” said the agency handling MPL to a query sent by IANS.
Board officials, however, said that the MPL deal does not put it in direct conflict with Dream11 who are the title sponsors of Indian Premier League. They said that while Dream11 was a fantasy league, MPL was different from it as it is an online e-gaming company.
–IANS
