Facing fierce competition from big sports brands like Adidas and Nike, Jalandhar-based small sports equipment makers see an opportunity in the Indian Premier League for promotion as many of them are hiring IPL players for endorsing their local products.
The endorsement agreements with players of IPL Season 5 will not only give instant recognition to their local brands across the country but it will also give a boost to the domestic sports goods industry, say manufacturers. "We have signed agreements with six IPL players to endorse our brand PROTOS which will help in promotion of our brand in domestic market," FC Sondhi and Company, manager (Production and Development), Pankaj Kumar said.
FC Sondhi and Company, which also makes sports equipment for Puma and Adidas, would give ‘PROTOS’ bats, pads and gloves to the signed players. He said that the company had signed pact with six players including Sunny Sohal (Deccan Chargers), Aditya Tare (Mumbai Indians), Pinal Shah (Rajasthan Royals), Ramesh Powar (Kings XI Punjab) for brand endorsement. Players like V V S Laxman and Amit Mishra are also using PROTOS sports kit, he said.
Spartan, another cricket gear brand in Jalandhar, has roped in Chris Gayle (Royal Challengers Bangalore and Paul Valthaty (Kings XI Punjab) for their brand promotion. "We have also signed an agreement with players like Chris Gayle and Paul Valthaty who will use our cricket gear in IPL matches," said Amit Sharma, partner in P Ram Chand and Company which owns Spartan brand. Spartan has also signed an agreement with Australian player Michael Clarke couple of months back.
Sports good industry insiders say despite famous cricket players having used cricket equipment manufactured in Jalandhar, small manufacturers could never be able to cash in on the immense popularity of the game as they could not pay hefty amount of sponsorship fee to cricket players.
"The government should put a ban on promotion (in cricket sport) by those companies which do not manufacture sports gear. It will give some chance to small manufacturers to promote their own brands in cash-rich game," said Sports Goods Manufacturers and Exporters Association Chairman Raghunath Rana. Jalandhar sports goods industry is famous for cricket bats, food balls, boxing gloves among other items and size of the industry is pegged at Rs 500 crore.
