Byju's to become Team India's new sponsor as Oppo backs out
After India's tour of West Indies, there will be a new brand name on Team India's jersey as Oppo makes way for Byju's. The Chinese smartphone brand, which had made a winning bid of about Rs. 1,079 crore for the jersey rights in March 2017 for a period of five years, will now be succeeded by the Bangalore-based educational technology firm.
According to a report in the Times of India, Oppo has made the decision to exit the space and reallocate the rights to the educational firm because they now find the value which they acquired the rights in 2017 to be 'extremely high' and 'unsustainable'.
It is learnt that development took place two weeks ago. Oppo will be on the jersey till the end of India's tour of West Indies, which commences August 3 and concludes on September 3.
India will then don the Byju's tag on their jersey during their home series against South Africa. It is known that work is already in process.
"Basically, what Oppo has done is cut its losses. They've reassigned the rights to Byju's. They will pay Byju's a minor amount to help make the full payment while Byju's will pay BCCI. The board will continue to get what is due to it," sources said, according to TOI.
The report further says that BCCI will continue to receive the same amount from Byju's and will be at no loss for the entire duration of the deal which runs till March 31, 2022.
Oppo was paying BCCI Rs 4.61 crore per bilateral match and Rs 1.56 crore for an ICC event match. Before that, STAR India used to pay Rs 1.92 crore per bilateral match and Rs 61 lakh for an ICC match.
The educational online firm was founded by Kerala based entrepreneur Byju Ravindran which is valued at Rs.38,000 crore.
An official statement is yet to be released.
