NBA brings with it USA’s leading brand for the two exhibition games in Mumbai on October 4 and 5. Apple is among the leading sponsors for the NBA India games, which feature Sacramento Kings and Indiana Pacers in two pre-season exhibition matches.
Among sports biggest commercial properties globally, NBA for the two games in India has attracted brands like PepsiCo’s energy drink Gatorade, Myntra, L’Oreal as well as Apple.
NBA’s global partner Gatorade has also signed rising athlete Hima Das to endorse the brand.
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The host broadcaster for the India Games, Sony Pictures Sports Network is excited about the response two games has generated. Apple, L’Oreal, TVS, Croma Electronics and William Grant are among the key on air advertisers, while the broadcaster was engaged in more brands for the big ticket evets.
The Associate Partners for the event include ACG, California Dream Big, Dream11, JBL. Saavan, Nike, SAP and Swiss luxury watch brand Tissot.
The impact of the even can be gauged from the fact that over 80% tickets were sold in less than 12 hours after the announcement of online sales in August.
Rohit Gupta, Sony Picture Networks’ chief revenue officer, has said that response to NBA’s India games was encouraging, considering that it’s a niche sport here. “Organising the games in India is a great way to promote and build a larger fan base here. It is very good for NBA and India as it will make the sport grow,” Gupta has told business daily Economic Times.
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“NBA has a massive fan-following in India. With this association, customers across the country will now be able to shop for official NBA merchandise on our platform,” the business daily has quoted a Myntra spokesperson as saying.
Meanwhile, NBA great Jason Williams has hailed India as a market with great potential for basketball.
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The games will be broadcast LIVE and EXCLUSIVE on Sony Sports Cluster channels – Sony Ten 1, Sony Ten 3, Sony Ten 1 HD and Sony Ten 3 HD – and Sony’s VOD platform SonyLIV. The broadcast on both days will start at 6:30 pm.
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