MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced Oppo Mobiles India Private Limited as the new team sponsor for the Indian Cricket Team. The mobile manufacturing giant Oppo's association with BCCI will start from April 2017 for a period of five years. The Oppo deal may reportedly be worth over Rs 538 crore, the amount which Star India had paid BCCI for its deal. (This figure was later confirmed to be Rs 1079 crore.)

The next deal that the BCCI may sign is for the IPL broadcast rights. The rights are currently with Sony, and will end after this year’s IPL.

A month before its contract for the Team India’s jersey sponsorship comes to an end in March 2017, Star India’s Chairman and CEO Uday Shankar has set the game up.

“Given all the volatility, we are indeed concerned about the health of cricket in the days ahead. We have been very proud that our name is carried on the jersey of Team India. But given all the uncertainties, we have decided not to bid for it again. The commitments being asked for are too onerous without any clarity,” Shankar bared a marketing fang in an interview given to Times of India.

A veteran of many journalistic face-offs earlier and now a master corporate strategist, Shankar’s message to BCCI or Indian cricket’s administrative body was clear, if not politically loaded: forget Team India’s indifferent performances at times on field, we can live with it; it’s the off-field boardroom games that’s making us uneasy to risk our money.