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Category: Sports

  • Sony Sports showcases untold stories of WWE superstars in new campaign

    Sony Sports showcases untold stories of WWE superstars in new campaign

    Mumbai: Sony Sports Networks has launched a new campaign called ‘WWE Superstars with Rana Daggubati’ that showcases the untold stories and heroics of WWE superstars. 

    Produced and conceptualised by Sony Sports Networks, the campaign will feature stories of ten WWE superstars narrated by South actor Rana Daggubati in English, Tamil and Telugu. These include Undertaker, John Cena, Drew McIntyre, Roman Reigns, Randy Orton, Bianca Belair, Seth Rollins, Charlotte Flair, Big E, and Becky Lynch.

    The campaign is centered on the insight that there is a ‘Hero in all of us.’ While fans in India have always appreciated the WWE heroes, their lesser-known side depicted in the ten short films will further inspire the viewers.

    “The epic journeys of these WWE Superstars in the ring and beyond are too big not to be shared with our viewers,” said Sony Pictures Networks India SVP & head of marketing & on-air promotions, sports channels, Neville Bastawalla. “We embarked on a mission to bring alive inspiring stories of 10 WWE Superstars. And who best to narrate them, than our very own Mahabali, Rana Daggubati, who happens to be a big WWE fan. I am sure that viewers will get an inside look into their perseverance that will inspire them to bring out the hero in them.”

    “I have been following WWE since childhood and I am a big fan. We only see the success of our favourite superstars but rarely know the struggles and hurdles they have overcome to be where they are today. I hope these films show our viewers another side of these WWE Superstars and inspire them to never give up in the face of adversity,” added the South superstar and face of the campaign Rana Daggubati.

  • Mashal Sports releases schedule for second part of PKL 8

    Mashal Sports releases schedule for second part of PKL 8

    Mumbai: Mashal Sports has announced the second part of the ongoing vivo Pro Kabaddi League with next 33 matches to be played from 20 January to 4 February. The event will be broadcast live every day from 7:30 p.m onwards on Star Sports network and Disney+ Hotstar.

    Out of 132 matches, PKL season 8 has already witnessed 66 matches between 12 teams and the next 33 matches will include ‘rivalry week’ where playing teams are selected for popular sentiments and folklore between respective geographies. The ‘rivalry week’ of PKL season 8 will be played from 31 January to 4 February.

    “A notable feature of Pro Kabaddi is that it offers the highest number of matches among front-ranking Indian sports leagues,” said Mashal Sports CEO and PKL league commissioner Anupam Goswami. “This is a unique value proposition for its 12 Teams, its athlete pool, as well as sports fans and sponsors in our country’s sports ecosystem.  The completion of 66 matches of the first half of season 8, as well as the release of the next 33 matches, is proof of our commitment to this intrinsic value of Pro Kabaddi.”   

    “We are proud to be associated with Pro Kabaddi, which has undertaken the massive task of conducting its eighth season in the given challenging circumstances,” said vivo India director brand strategy Yogendra Sriramula.

  • BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year award returns with third edition

    BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year award returns with third edition

    Mumbai: The third edition of BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year award is returning with the nominations being announced on 8 February. The award commemorates the achievements and contributions of outstanding Indian women in sports. 

    Audiences will be able to vote for their favourite Indian sportswoman from the five nominees shortlisted by a jury of sports journalists, experts and sportswriters.  The online voting will take place globally on BBC Indian languages websites and on BBC Sport and the winner will be announced on 7 March, said the statement.

    BBC will honour two other Indian sports stars with the ‘BBC Emerging player award’ which recognises new talent, and the ‘BBC Lifetime Achievement’ award, which goes to a legendary sports personality who has contributed exceptionally to the field of Indian sports.

    “The year 2022 is special not only because we will be launching the third edition of ISWOTY, but we are also celebrating 100 glorious years of the BBC,” said BBC News head of India Rupa Jha. “This award ties in so well with the true spirit of the BBC to celebrate the fearless and the courageous.  Once again, we come together to honour those women who triumphed against all odds and made the world more equal and fair.”

    Indian chess player and the winner of BBC ISWOTY 2020 Koneru Humpy expressed her delight on the return of the award and said, “BBC ISWOTY is a wonderful initiative that encourages the younger generation, and boosts women players’ recognition. As a chess player when I was nominated by the BBC ISWOTY, I received a lot of recognition from India and all over the world.”

  • Sony Sports to telecast Australian Open 2022 starting 17 January

    Sony Sports to telecast Australian Open 2022 starting 17 January

    Mumbai: Sony Sports Network will broadcast the year’s first Grand Slam Event the Australian Open 2022 starting 17 January on Sony Six, Sony Ten 2, Sony Ten 3 and Sony Ten 4 as well as on OTT platform – Sonyliv.

    Sony Sports has onboarded advertisers like Lenovo, Amul, Kia Motors, and LIC as sponsors. Other advertisers like Skoda, Total Oil, Ford, Go Mechanic, Mercedes, Dafa News, Fairplay News, 1X News, Netmed and Apple will also be a part of the telecast.

    Sony Sports’ Live studio show ‘Extraa Serve’ will be hosted by Arpit Sharma and Sarthak Lal and will provide in-depth insight into the action at Melbourne Park. Former tennis players like Somdev Devvarman, Purav Raja and Gaurav Natekar are set to feature as expert panelists on the show along with on-ground reporter Adriano Del Monte. The Hindi commentary on Sony Ten 3 channel will be provided by Manish Batavia, Atish Thukral, and Gaurav Natekar.

    This year, the world’s top player Ash Barty will attempt to become the first local player to win an Australian Open singles title in 44 years while defending champion Naomi Osaka is expected to return and target a fifth career major singles title.

    Rafael Nadal, tied with Djokovic at 20 career major singles titles, will also be competing for the first time since August and will hope to end Djokovic’s streak at the Australian Open 2022.

    The Grand Slam tournament will see participation from top Indian players like Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza. The mixed doubles pair will be playing this year’s tournament.

    This edition of the Grand Slam will also witness the 100th anniversary of the women’s competition at the Australian Open. To honor this feat, there will be a historic change in the schedule of the tournament. Both women’s semi-final matches will be moving to the night session.

    “Australian Open is the first and most competitive tennis Grand Slam of the calendar year as it sees participation from the best tennis players from across the globe,” said Sony Pictures Networks India chief revenue officer of distribution and head – sports business Rajesh Kaul. “There is already a lot of talk about the tournament amongst the advertisers as we have received tremendous response from various sectors like tech, automobile, FMCG and more. We aim to showcase and bring real-time action from the courts and this year with our Hindi and English feeds along with our studio show, ‘Extraa Serve’ that will also take the tournament to a wider audience in India.”

  • Sony Sports to telecast docuseries ‘Down Underdogs’ starting 14 January

    Sony Sports to telecast docuseries ‘Down Underdogs’ starting 14 January

    Mumbai: Sony Sports Network has produced a special docuseries titled “Down Underdogs – India’s Greatest Comeback” that will premiere on 14 January and telecast daily until 17 January.

    The docuseries will be telecast on Sony Six and Sony Ten 4 in English and Sony Ten 3 in Hindi. It will also be aired on Sony Max HD, Sony SAB HD and Sony Pix channels and streaming on the OTT platform SonyLIV. The broadcaster has partnered with Byju’s Classes, Skoda and Dafa News for the docuseries.

    The launch of the four-part docuseries will be in Hindi and English followed by a Tamil and Telugu broadcast on a later date. The series captures team India’s historic Test series win against Australia at The Gabba in 2020-21.

    “Down Underdogs – India’s Greatest Comeback” has been entirely produced in-house amidst some extremely challenging Covid-19 scenarios. Interviews with players and commentators located in England and Australia were conducted via local partnerships and remote production technology.

    The series will showcase current players like Mohammed Siraj and Hanuma Vihari along with prominent personalities like Sunil Gavaskar, Michael Clarke, Jason Gillespie, Sanjay Manjrekar, Lisa Sthalekar, Nick Knight, and Isa Guha.

    Apart from the world-class cricketing insights, a team of raconteurs like Rajdeep Sardesai, Harsha Bhogle, Ayaz Memon, Joy Bhattacharjya and Gaurav Kapur will help navigate through the incredible subplots and storylines in the series.

    “We take immense pride to bring back to life one of the most historic memories of Indian Test cricket through Down Underdogs – India’s Greatest Comeback,” said Sony Pictures Networks India chief revenue officer, distribution and head – sports business Rajesh Kaul. “The series is an aide-mémoire to all Indian cricket fans who had an unflinching belief in the team despite all odds and more so as an exemplary story to inspire generations to come.”

    “India’s win in Australia early last year will go down as one of the greatest wins in Indian cricket history,” said former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar. “To pick themselves up after the dismissal with their lowest ever test score of 36 and then to beat a rampant home team is a tribute to the determination shown by the players and the leadership roles played by the captain Rahane, coach Ravi Shastri and his support group.

    “India’s Greatest Comeback will invite viewers to revisit Team India’s amazing comeback leading to the series win,” said former Australian cricketer Michael Clarke. “India picked an attack that worked. Different bowlers – not everyone bowls the same, different tactics, different skills, different weapons, so the credit goes to India for their execution but also Australia might have taken for granted their success in the first test.”

  • Tata Group to replace Vivo as title sponsor of IPL

    Tata Group to replace Vivo as title sponsor of IPL

    Mumbai: Business conglomerate Tata Group is all set to replace Vivo as the title sponsor for the Indian Premier League (IPL) next year, said the league chairman Brijesh Patel on Tuesday. The decision was announced post the governing council meeting.

    “Yes. Tata Group will replace Vivo as title sponsor,” Patel told PTI. The Chinese manufacturer still has two years left in its sponsorship deal with the league, and consequently, Tata will remain the main sponsor during this period.

    Meanwhile, the two new teams including Sanjiv Goenka’s RPSG group for the Lucknow Franchise and CVC Capital’s Ahmedabad team also received formal clearance from the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI).

    Vivo had a Rs 2200 crore deal for title sponsorship rights from 2018 to 2022 but the brand had to take a year-long break in between due to the ongoing tension between India and China. Dream11 had joined the league during the period. However, the Chinese giant returned as the title sponsor in 2021.

  • Eurosport & Jio TV acquire broadcast rights for 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup

    Eurosport & Jio TV acquire broadcast rights for 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup

    Mumbai: Eurosport India, Discovery Network’s sports brand, and Jio TV Network have acquired the broadcast rights for AFC Women’s Asian Cup India 2022. India hosts the 20th edition of Asia’s showpiece women’s football tournament between 20 January and 6 February.

    Eurosport India will telecast the tournament on television. Meanwhile, Jio TV will stream the matches of the competition on its online platform and across its network.

    The Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), which currently holds the media rights for all Asian Football Confederation (AFC) competitions in the Indian subcontinent, has accorded the PayTV broadcast rights to Eurosport India.

    The 20th edition of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup India 2022 will feature 12 teams, which have been divided into three groups. Group A includes India, China PR, Chinese Taipei, and IR Iran, while Group B includes Australia, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia. Meanwhile, Japan, Korea Republic, Vietnam, and Myanmar have been slotted in Group C.

    The tournament will begin in a round-robin format where each team will face the other three teams of the group to secure a place in  the quarter-finals which will be held on 30 January. Hosts India will play their opening game against Iran on 20 January as they aim to gather home points to seal the top spot on an opening day.

    The sports event will act as the final stage of Asian qualification for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. With Australia having already qualified as co-host, five more teams will qualify for the main event directly while two of them will progress to the inter-confederation play-offs.

  • RuPay Prime Volleyball League onboards ShareChat, Moj as content partners

    RuPay Prime Volleyball League onboards ShareChat, Moj as content partners

    Mumbai: In the lead up to the RuPay Prime Volleyball League which begins on 5 February in Kochi, social media platform ShareChat and short video app Moj have announced their association with the tournament as official content partners.

    The RuPay Prime Volleyball League will witness seven franchises from seven different cities battle it out for the trophy next month. This will include Calicut Heroes, Kochi Blue Spikers, Ahmedabad Defenders, Hyderabad Black Hawks, Chennai Blitz, Bengaluru Torpedoes and Kolkata Thunderbolts.

    ShareChat and Moj boast a reach of 32+ million and 50+ million respectively. ShareChat has a 180 million monthly active user base while Moj has over 160 million MAUs. RuPay Prime Volleyball League will work closely with the two platforms and the players as well as the teams to bring content that will catch the imagination of volleyball fans, said the statement. “The teams and players will also be creating their profiles on the two apps to engage with fans through contests and challenges,” it added.

    “We are extremely delighted to associate with RuPay Prime Volleyball League as their official content partners,” said Sharechat and Moj senior director content strategy and operations Shashank Shekhar. “Volleyball’s popularity has been increasing over the years amongst users across India and we are eager to share engaging content around the sport with our community. We are looking forward to bringing Volleyball alive on our platforms with this association.”

    Sports marketing firm Baseline Ventures is exclusively marketing the RuPay Prime Volleyball League. The global card payment network from India RuPay has come on board as the title sponsor and Fantasy games brand A23 has signed on as ‘powered by’ sponsors in a multi-year deal. EatFit and Nippon Paint are associate sponsors, while Cosco is the official partner.

    “It is imperative for us to take the RuPay Prime Volleyball League to all corners of the country. This association with ShareChat and Moj will help us share engaging content with volleyball fans and give them an opportunity to experience the League from their respective locations,” commented Baseline Ventures co-founder and MD Tuhin Mishra.

    The RuPay Prime Volleyball League will consist of 24 games that will be broadcast live and exclusive on Sony Ten 1, Sony Ten 3 (Hindi) and Sony Ten 4 (Tamil and Telugu).

  • SPNI to broadcast Legends League Cricket in India

    SPNI to broadcast Legends League Cricket in India

    Mumbai: Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) has partnered with Legends League Cricket to broadcast all the matches of the league to be played in January 2022. The matches will be aired on Sony Ten 1 and Sony Ten 3 channels as well as live-streamed on the OTT platform, SonyLIV.

    The league will be held at the Al Amerat Cricket Stadium in Muscat, Oman and will be joined by former cricketers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, England, among other cricket nations divided into three teams representing India, Asia, and the rest of the world.

    League Cricket has announced that Shoaib Akhtar, Shahid Afridi, Sanath Jayasuriya, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Romesh Kaluwitharana, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Azhar Mahmood, Upul Tharanga, Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammed Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Mohammed Yousuf, Umar Gul, Younis Khan, and Asghar Afghan will be playing for Asia Lions.

    The league has roped in actor Amitabh Bachchan to be its ambassador and former India head coach Ravi Shastri as its commissioner looking after the cricketing aspect.

    “We are extremely happy to announce this partnership with Sony Pictures Networks India,” said Legends League Cricket CEO Raman Raheja. “We wish to walk a long mile with them and ensure viewers are treated with a very competitive and entertaining form of cricket.” 

    “It’s a very exciting partnership to get into and having these stalwarts on the ground playing competitive cricket will definitely engage our viewers across India,” said SPNI chief revenue officer for distribution and head of sports business Rajesh Kaul. “With the Legends League Cricket, we will present our viewers a great viewing experience of watching these legends in action on our sports channels.”

  • T20 WC ’21: 80+ brands appeared on TV, e-comm categories spend big

    T20 WC ’21: 80+ brands appeared on TV, e-comm categories spend big

    Mumbai: On 7 November, New Zealand victory over Afghanistan ended India’s chances of qualifying for the semi-finals of ICC T20 World Cup 2021, yet more than 80 brands advertised during the course of the 45-day tournament with BYJU’s topping the list, according to data provided by Tam Media Research.  

    E-commerce categories – education and gaming which were new advertiser categories this year ended up topping the charts in terms of ad volumes. In general, the e-commerce industry dominated ad volumes four out of five of the top categories being from e-commerce categories. The top five categories contributed 42 per cent share of total ad volumes.  

    E-commerce – wallets, e-commerce – education, smartphones, e-commerce – gaming and e-commerce – financial services comprised the top categories that advertised during the tournament in terms of ad volumes. Think & Learn (BYJU’s), Reliance Retail, Coca Cola India, Havells India and Nedmeds Marketplace were the top five advertisers in terms of volumes. Top five advertisers account for up to 29 per cent share of total ad volumes on TV.

    Compared to the 2016 edition of the tournament, this year’s ICC T20 World Cup saw a 19 per cent increase in ad volumes per match, according to Tam data. For the final match between New Zealand and Australia, ad volumes increased by 16 per cent compared to the previous edition.

    While the total number of advertisers for 2016 and 2021 ICC T20 World Cup remain the same, there were 26 new advertiser categories that appeared on TV.

    (Source: TAM Sports; figures are based on secondages for TV; commercial ads only; excluding promos and social ads)