Having bid over Rs 1,700 crore for buying an IPL team, Sahara will review its sponsorship to the Indian cricket team, Group chief Subroto Roy has said.
Sahara had bagged the sponsorship for the Indian cricket team for Rs 400 crore for a four-year period ending December 2009, and had agreed to continue for six more months as the Board of Control for Cricket in India could not find any sponsors.
In the eventuality of Sahara discontinuing the sponsorship, BCCI may find it difficult to rope in a new patron, given the mad rush for the Indian Premier League.
When asked if there would be any impact of the group’s aggressive bidding to acquire the Pune team, Roy said, “No, it will not. The only thing we will see is our continuation of sponsorship to the Indian cricket team. We will sit on that and we will discuss on that. But, on all other sports — nothing will be affected.”
Asserting that the group, which is also sponsoring the hockey team, would seriously consider (limiting) exposure to the BCCI and women’s cricket, he said, “We will take a conscious decision about it.”