IPL 9: T20 overdose bowls out apparel, fan gear merchandise sales

Orders down 25-30%; branded gear manufacturers losing out to unorganised players who are selling much cheaper

An overdose of cricket in form of back to back T20 tournaments of Asia Cup and World Cup have led to fall in manufacturing and retail of apparel merchandise and fan gear during the IPL season this year that begins from Saturday.

According to merchandise manufacturers, orders for apparel merchandise and fan gear have dipped by close to 30 per cent this year. The IPL merchandise based on different teams of cricketing franchise usually includes knitted jerseys, caps, wrist bands and other fan gear along with branding of sponsors.

While there are several apparel manufacturers or vendors who bag orders every year from IPL teams and their kit sponsors for manufacturing the merchandise, typically a vendor bags orders for anywhere between 200,000 to over a million. However, according to vendors, the quantities have been reducing year on year.

"So far, order quantities have reduced this year by 25-30 per cent. There has been an overdose of T20 cricket in form of Asia Cup and World Cup and now IPL Season 9. Response from people seem to be jaded this time. However, once the IPL season 9 starts from Saturday, we will get a better picture," said Anil Sharma, Vice President - Marketing and Merchandising at Noida-based Paragon Apparel, a vendor for brands and teams like Zeven for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) for Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).

According to a Ludhiana-based vendor, the fall in orders has been occurring over the last few years, hinting at a dwindling response among fans for merchandise.

"The T20 cricket craze among fans seems to be dwindling, thereby impacting apparel orders meant for the IPL season which have declined by at least 25 per cent. The trend of decline had begun since last few years," the vendor said on condition of anonymity.

Vendors are also of the view that the impact could be due to higher priced branded merchandise sold by teams and sponsors. This has also led to a flurry of unorganised players flooding the retail market with lower priced imitation of the fan gear and merchandise. Hence, while production of organised branded IPL jerseys and fan gear, priced on the higher range of Rs 1,000 and onwards has fallen, unorganised players have joined the bandwagon and selling the same at much lesser prices of Rs 200-400.

However, industry experts are of the view that with the IPL season getting into action in the later weeks, things could pick up.

"Orders and sales of merchandise have been less. There will be lesser viewership and lesser merchandise sales than last year. However, one could see things picking up once the action starts. However, teams and sponsors may not be able to produce apparel and fan gear merchandise in huge quantities then," said Prashant Agarwal, joint managing director of Wazir Advisors, a retail consulting firm.

Sponsors are, however, hopeful of making the most of the IPL fans' enthusiasm as the season moves on.

"I don't think the recent T20 tournaments may have had any impact. Cricket in our country has been bigger than many other things and will continue to be so. However, it is a different thing how you utilise it in terms of business and commercially," said Arun Pandey, CMD and Promoter of Rhiti Group which runs the sports lifestyle brand 'Seven', one of the sponsors for the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Rising Pune Supergiants IPL team.

Meanwhile, it needs to be mentioned here that earlier, the Future Group which used to outsource manufacturing of its own range of IPL apparel merchandise to garmenters every year had discontinued the same in 2013. The group used to retail IPL merchandise at its Big Bazaar and Pantaloon outlets till recently.