Sahara to continue as Indian team sponsor

The Sahara logo will stay on India jerseys until 2013. The Sahara Group will continue as sponsors of the Indian team after they won the contract by bidding Rs. 3.34 crores ($719,000) per match. The current sponsorship contract ends on June 30 and the new one runs until December 31, 2013. A top Sahara official also confirmed the development. Bharti Airtel, the only other company in the fray, put in a bid for Rs 2.89 crore ($628, 260) per match.

"We take pride in sponsoring the Indian national team," Abhijit Sarkar, corporate affairs head at Sahara, said.

Sahara's winning bid comes as something of a surprise as chairman Subrata Roy had said the company would re-evaluate its sponsorship of the Indian team after it bagged the Pune IPL franchise. According to market sources, Sahara decided to bid again because an analysis of the numbers turned out positive. It paid Rs 407 crores ($88 million) over the last four years, so the new deal requires roughly Rs 85 crores ($18.5 million) more, which doesn't hurt the group much.

Sahara waited until the last minute before entering the bidding because it was worried about the response from its competitors. It feared the price of deal could rise over Rs 500 crores if its interest was publically known. The deal is solely to sponsor the Indian men's team, as the group was not interested in spending an extra Rs 10-15 crore on the other three squads (women's, India A and Under-19).

The BCCI had set a base price of Rs 2.5 crores ($ 541,000) per match for the three-and-a-half-year period, during which India will play between 144 and 167 matches, depending on how far the team progresses in ICC tournaments. At Rs 3.34 crores a match, the Sahara deal is worth between Rs 481 crores ($104 million) and Rs 558 crores ($121 million).

Under the terms of the previous deal, Sahara paid Rs 1.91 crores ($ 412,000) per Test, Rs 2.09 crores ($ 455,000) per ODI and Rs 1.57 crores ($ 340,000) per Twenty20. The new price is the same across all three formats, and more than doubles the price of a Twenty20 game, highlighting its appeal and popularity.

The board had originally issued a tender late last year with a base price of Rs 3 crores ($ 650,000) per match, but failed to attract a single bid. As a stop gap measure, the Sahara Group agreed to extend its sponsorship of the Indian team for a further six months.

The Indian board issued the tender on Monday inviting companies to bid for the rights and the bidding period closed on Saturday.

Source : Cricinfo