SBU Ep16: Dentsu set up a sports unit in India, Star Sports set a steep ad revenue target for World Test Series Finals and more

In this week’s episode, I discuss Dentsu launching a sports unit in India, Star Sports setting a steep ad revenue target for the World Test Series, Comscore’s latest data on which country has the largest online sports audience in the APAC region and do a quick round on other big sports business news from India featuring JSW, Dream Sports Foundation and more.

So, let’s get into the details…. 

We begin this week’s updates with the news of Dentsu launching a new sports unit in India.

The return of global ad spends has lead to Dentsu launching a specialist Indian sports division.

The operation will be a cross-agency effort combining 200 personnel from Dentsu operations across the globe, and it will function as a unit of Dentsu Sports Asia, itself based in Singapore.

Dentsu plans to create unique sports concepts for various brands. Their vast range of services will include sports consultancy, in-stadia advertising, brand activations, talent management, corporate sports events, sports education, CSR and team sponsorships.

Dentsu’s Indian operations will be led by Anand Yalvigi who is a former Ranji Trophy player having played for both Mumbai and Karnataka. He has launched and worked with multiple sports management companies including Ignite Sports, Havas Sports, Network Sports and Nimbus. He was also instrumental in setting up the Kochi IPL team.

This week’s second update is about Star Sports and their expected revenue from the World Test Series

Star Sports have onboarded 16 sponsors and over 30 other advertisers with still some time to go for the biggest test match series, the world test championship and is likely to earn around Rs 90 crore from the WTC Finals in terms of ad revenue.

The expected ad revenue to be in the range of Rs 15-20 crore on a per day basis for the WTC Finals 2021.

Star Sports has been upbeat about WTC cricket property, but experts say that in terms of advertising it will be lower than IPL and the upcoming T20 World Cup.

To add misery to the most-awaited test cricket property, Day 1 was rained out and every day the match is not played the advertisers investment

Our third update is about Comscore’s latest data on online sports consumption figures in the APAC region.

 According to the latest Comscore data, India accounts for the largest online sports audience in the Asia-Pacific region, with nearly 468 million unique visitors in March 2021.

The data was collected through details around visitors who visited sporting news, sports magazines, scoreboards, fantasy leagues, and other sports-related sites.

India is followed by Indonesia, with over 122 million unique visitors, and Japan, with nearly 89 million. In relative terms, Australia stands out with over half (54%) of its digital population consuming sports-related content in the first quarter of 2021. 

Here are some more interesting facts about digital sports consumption in India:

• Around 34% of India’s digital population between the age of 15-24 accessed online sports content, compared with 22% for the segment aged 35+. 
• The 15-24-year-old’s consumed 65 minutes of online sports content per visitor compared to 56 minutes amongst the 25-34 and 35+ demographic. 
• When it comes to gender demographics, 33% of the male digital population in India accessed sports content, compared to 19% for the female digital population.
• The male digital population-averaged 70 mins content consumption per visitor compared to 32 minutes recorded by the female sports consuming population.

 It is very evident that the younger population in India is pushing up the number of total online sports audience which is great news for international sports entities and sports media to concentrate focus on engaging fans in India by creating content in the forms of web articles, videos and localised languages.

In other sports business news updates this week:

• Sports Education

JSW Sports, announced a partnership with Europe’s leading Sports Masters Education institute, Académie Internationale des Sciences et Techniques du Sport (AISTS), to offer Post Graduate Certificate courses and Executive Education Programs in Sports Management in India. AISTS will offer a 12 month Post Graduate Certificate Program in Sports Management and Technology and a 45-day Executive Education Program in Sports Management. 

• Sports Philantrophy 

Dream Sports Foundation (DSF), the philanthropic arm of Dream Sports, has successfully supported over 3,500 sports professionals across 29 sports during the pandemic as part of its Back on Track programme. Out of the 3,500 beneficiaries, 3,300 are current and retired athletes, over 100 are coaches, and more than 70 are sports support staff and journalists. The beneficiaries are from 24 states and three union territories in India.

• Endorsements 

Senco Gold & Diamonds, a jewellery retail chain, has signed the internationally acclaimed Indian sprinter and current national champion in the women’s 100m event, Dutee Chand as the company’s new brand ambassador. She will be promoting ‘Everlite’ – the lightweight jewellery range from Senco Gold & Diamonds. 

Sports nutrition brand Myprotein has signed up 18-year-old Palak Kohli, the youngest para-badminton player in the world to ever qualify for the Tokyo Paralympics 2021.

This brings us to the end of this week’s episode of Sports Business Updates.