Nike pulls the plug on cricket

Nike remains one of the biggest spenders in cricket, paying around Rs 60 crores a year to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to sponsor the Indian cricket team’s official kit. But it has shut around 30 per cent of its stores in the country to cut costs. Nike India has been struggling with losses that have accumulated to over Rs 500 crores in 2014-15.

The move signals a broader trend, where advertisers are not only looking beyond cricket at other sports for better return-on-investment but are also exploring innovative marketing practices to advertise in India’s most widely watched game. Sponsoring cricket bats is an expensive marketing exercise in India. Companies cough up Rs 7 crores to Rs 10 crores per year to put their logos on willows of top players.

German sportswear maker Puma has snapped up Olympian wrestler Sakshi Malik as brand ambassador and is also investing in sports such as boxing at the grassroots level. Adidas remains involved in cricket by sponsoring the bats of one or two top players but it has branched out to cheaper alternatives such as kabaddi, football and tennis as a sponsor. It has been around two years since any of the top bat makers in Meerut have got orders from Nike.