Cricket could be the single biggest sufferer if the ‘anti-Chinese’ mood impacts the Indian sports ecosystem. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), among the richest sports associations in the world, has strong links – direct and indirect -- with Chinese brands or investors.
The Indian Premier League, one of the top five sports properties in the world in terms of global broadcast rights valuation, has multiple links with Chinese brands or companies that have Chinese investments. While mobile company Vivo has a five-year IPL title sponsorship deal worth INR 2,200 crore with BCCI, online fantasy league platform Dream 11 and e-commerce company Paytm are official partners of the IPL. Both Dream 11 and Paytm receive funding from Chinese companies.
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Tencent, one of the largest video game companies in the world, has majority stake in Dream 11 while Alibaba have 37.15% stake in Paytm. Apart from the big players, Swiggy, an associate sponsor of the world's richest T20 league, has 5.27 % holding from Tencent.
Not just the IPL, BCCI’s riches also come from its INR 1,079-crore, five-year team sponsorship deal with Byju’s. The online tutoring firm receives funding from Tencent. For becoming the title sponsors of all international matches played by India at home, Paytm is contracted to pay a whopping INR 326.8 crore -- 3.8 crore per match -- to the BCCI. Dream 11 is also an official sponsor of the BCCI.
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“As of now, all relationships are safe and continuing. We have received no directive from the government to stop anything,” said Arun Singh Dhumal, the BCCI treasurer.
Interestingly, the BCCI has strong links with the BJP government as well. Incumbent secretary Jay Shah is the son of Home Minister Amit Shah while Dhumal is the brother of Anurag Thakur, the minister of state for finance and corporate affairs.
Dhumal said the BCCI will be open to review its sponsorship deals. “The interest of India is always larger than BCCI’s commercial interest,” he added.
Vivo and Dream 11 did not comment on their relationship with BCCI.
While most industry veterans said the tirade against China was more noise than reality, Chinese companies are likely to change tack going forward. “Lately, there has been a shift in thinking to a more product focus approach than just branding. The Chinese brands are becoming more value driven than just paying a premium and capturing the opportunity at any cost,” said Bhairav Shanth of ITW Consulting, a company that works on client engagement with multiple cricket boards, including BCCI.
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Sponsorship and investments is complex, explains Lloyd Mathias, business strategist and former marketing head of HP, Asia-Pacific. “Ownership of companies is getting increasingly diversified and often difficult to pinpoint to a specific country. The holdings and cross holdings, the nationalities of the founders and the employees; the diversified manufacturing locations – all make this task very complex and open to interpretation. Having the founder of a certain nationality or a business headquartered in a country is no indication that the company belongs there,” said Mathias.
With Indian brands having limited resources, it’s the Chinese and their sponsored brands that have taken the centre stage in Indian sports arena especially in the last three-four years. They have made significant inroads in the online gaming business and particularly e-Sports.
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A senior official of an online gaming company, with major Chinese investment, said, "India is not in a position to start a trade war like the US. Even imposition of any strict sanctions on Chinese investments will send wrong signals to global investors. It is better to resolve issues amicably.” He added that even specific scrutiny of Chinese investments can bring a fragile industrial ecosystem to a standstill, meaning more job cuts and loss of big opportunities. "Indo-China trade war will harm more India than China," he said.
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(With inputs from Jyotika Sood)
