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RIL Foray into 720 Bn USD Global Sports Market

  • Everyone wants to be a billionaire, but no one wants to change the habits that are keeping them broke. Sad but very true reality.
  • You know, a lot of people fail to realize that business is war and there are certain habits that most wealthy people have in common.
  • Steve Ballmer, Mukesh Ambani, François Pinault and Dietrich Mateschitz. How are these billionaires linked? These are the top billionaires who form the elite club of the world’s richest sports team owners.
  • Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries (RIL), owns the popular Indian Premier League cricket franchise Mumbai Indians through a wholly-owned subsidiary, Indiawin Sports.
  • Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO is owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.
  • François Pinault, owner of fashion brands such as Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci, owns a football team, the Stade Rennais FC.
  • Red Bull energy drink company co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz owns Formula One teams Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri, and Major League Soccer club, New York Red Bulls.
  • While sports presents a great area to hone the business war skills, it is also a huge 720 Bn USD market
  • There are 61 billionaire controlling owners of teams in major sports leagues around the world. They own a total of 81 teams (dozens of other billionaires own minority stakes in teams or own ones in lower leagues) and are collectively worth $384 billion.
  • Ambani has made a fresh attempt to grow big in the sports arena by buying out IMG Reliance Limited (IMG-R), a joint venture company between RIL and IMG, engaged in the business of creation, management, implementation, and commercialization of sporting, fashion, and entertainment events in India. IMG is a global leader in sports, fashion, events, and media, operating in more than 30 countries.
  • On January 27, RIL announced its independent venture to step up activities in the sports, lifestyle, and entertainment business, in India and across the globe, through the buyout and the rebranding of its sports and lifestyle business to RISE Worldwide.
  • RIL said the transition to an independent brand identity is aimed at providing various verticals currently within the sports and lifestyle businesses autonomy to operate and create industry-driving strategies and world-class consumer experiences.
  • The portfolio of the new entity includes sports and sponsorship consulting, fashion, and sustainability platform building, athlete talent management, licensing, broadcast production, lifestyle, and entertainment with owned or managed key properties such as ISL, the country’s premier football league; Fashion Week, India’s premier fashion platform; Tata Open Maharashtra, South Asia’s only ATP World Tour event; The Voice of Fashion; and SU.RE Sustainable Resolution, among others.
  • Built on our existing relationships, trust and the knowledge of the industry, RISE seeks to help partners reach their target audience effectively as we bring their creative initiatives to life and provide consumers with world class experiences across each of our properties,” said the spokesperson.
  • The company is already India’s largest independent sports, lifestyle, and entertainment enterprise, connecting with over 150 million youth on social media through their various IPs. It is already managing a robust roster of six cricket athletes exclusively, including Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and Shreyas Iyer, under the company’s athlete talent management division.
  • The sports sponsorship and consultancy division represents brands like Dream11, boAt and BKT Tires, among others. The company exclusively marketed the global virtual inventory of the recently-concluded Australian tour of the Indian cricket team. The company also boasts of a fully-equipped broadcast production setup and is looking to engage in sports production contracts across the world.

RIL to ‘RISE’ in sports, entertainment, and fashion.

  • After buying out IMG’s stake in the RIL joint venture, we are charting out a solo course into the management of sports, entertainment events, and talent under the rebramded entity RISE WorldWide.
  • Scale and determination are two things RIL is known to bring to anything it does.
  • So, its foray into 720 Bn USD Global sports has to be taken seriously.
  • World class infrastructure, frugal engineering, technology and scientific coaching are integral part of development of today’s sporting talent globally,
  • With the exception of cricket, the sports administration in the country is unremittingly uninspiring and the infrastructure-owning authorities are mostly bloodyminded.
  • The field is littered with aborted multi-million dollar sports projects, including Airtel’s football academy and Apollo Tyres’ tennis academy.
  • Besides, RIL has already bitten the dust once in that arena: in 2004, in Hyderabad, the Naidu government gave it the city stadia to run, but the succeeding Reddy government threw IMG out.
  • So, this time RIL is looking beyond money muscle to score in this most tricky of businesses.
Sports industry is a social phenomenon that make up numerous entities around the world. The global sports market is worth $620 billion with a CAGR of 5.9%. With growth that is faster than global GDP, its long-term prospects appear strong. USA has the biggest market sector so far, amounting to $31.83 billion. From live sporting events to food stands, media sponsorships, and material goods, the sports industry is growing at rapid speeds with high competition and a promising future.
  • The sports industry today spans the field of play — from the food and memorabilia stands at the stadium, to media rights , sponsorships, infrastructure construction, sporting goods, licensed products and live sports events.
  • Live sports events in particular offer a compelling proposition to different industry participants — from free-to-air broadcasters seeking viewers and advertising revenues and pay-TV broadcasters looking for loyal subscribers, to sponsors moving away from traditional media, event organizers, athletes and spectators.
  • Global sports industry is growing much faster than national gross domestic product (GDP) rates around the world.
  • And the global sports value chain — its size, makeup and revenues — has significant growth prospects for the future.
  • The sports market is segmented by type into participatory sports and spectator sports. The participatory sports market was the largest segment of the sports market segmented by type, accounting for almost 72% of the total in 2020.
  • The participatory sports market is segmented by type into marines, bowling centers, skiing facilities, fitness and recreational sports, golf courses and country clubs and other participatory sports. The fitness and recreational centers market was the largest segment of the participatory sports market segmented by type, accounting for more than 39% of the total in 2020.
  • The spectator sports market is segmented by type into sports teams and clubs and racing and individual sports. The sports team and clubs was the largest segment of the spectator sports market segmented by type, accounting for approximately 75% of the total in 2020.
  • The sports market is segmented by revenue source into media rights, sponsorship, merchandising and tickets. The media rights market was the largest segment of the sports market segmented by revenue source, accounting for about 38% of the total in 2020
  • North America was the largest region in the global sports market, accounting for nearly 35% of the total in 2020. It was followed by Asia Pacific, Western Europe, and then the other regions. Going forward, the fastest-growing regions in the sports market will be South America and the Middle East.
  • The global sports market is highly fragmented, with a large number of players in the market. The top ten competitors in the market made up to almost 2% of the total market in 2019. Major players in the market include Maruhan, Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees, Manchester United Football Club and Futball Club Barcelona.
  • The countries covered in the global sports market are Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, UK, USA.
  • The regions covered in the global sports market are Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East, Africa.

Key Facts

  • Sports industry is the second fastest growing sector for brands, outpacing the GDP growth of most countries.
  • The market for wearable technologies will double in sales by 2021.
  • The sports industry in America will reach $100 billion in 2021.
  • Nike and ESPN control the majority of brand market share.
  • The sports analytics market was valued at $56 million in 2018 and has a CAGR of 30% until 2024.
  • In 2019, sports sponsorship revenue in North America amounted to $18 billion.
  • Tech giants will continue to challenge traditional sports media, thereby increasing competition for premium contents.
  • International sports betting is estimated to have a market capitalization of $250 billion; 50% of US citizens have reportedly admitted to betting in sport events.
  • Revenues for eSports have reached $1.1 billion in 2019.

Sport Events Market

  • Sporting event involves any athletic activity where competition from differing parties play under governing rules. The market for global sporting events is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4% for 2021.
  • Businesses are booming in the sports industry and they are expected to grow exponentially in the next few years. Various major leagues and sports team make up successful businesses around the world. For example, the National Football League (NFL) is by far the most successful American sports league in history while the English Premier League (EPL) is leading the European market. NFL earned nearly $20 billion in 2019 and more than 50% of the league’s revenue came from TV deals. The EPL revenue amounted to $10.1 billion for the 2019/2020 season, which is up 6% from its previous year.

Industry Trends

Several key trends have affected the sports industry in recent years. Especially with the advent of new technologies and innovation, athletes as well as fans have adopted alternate approaches to participating in sports activities. Below are some key trends to watch out for:

1. eSports — This particular sector has grown tremendously over the past couple of years. With an increase in viewership as well as its revenue, the annual growth rate for eSports will approximately reach 14%. This essentially means that in 2021, an estimated 2.57 billion people will likely learn about this industry.

2. Sponsorships — In sports business, sponsorship is everything. It drives profits, provides funds, and allows for competitive events to run. Business spending on sports sponsorship is expected to grow by 4% and spend nearly $44 billion globally. In addition, the sponsorship market will reach $49 billion by 2023. While sponsorship is important for many sports organizations, consumers have criticized that corporate presence takes away the purity in sports competition; thereby making sports all about profits.

3. Media Rights — Media rights are essentially the fees that customers have to pay to watch sports on TV, the internet, or any other media distribution channels. Most of the revenues that come from any sporting events come from this avenue. Media rights are reported to reach $23.8 billion in revenue by 2022 and represent nearly 30% of all sports revenues. The biggest players behind media rights come from tech giants like Apple and Amazon.

4. Sports Gambling — Sports betting has become one of the most popular sectors within the sports industry. Since there are strict regulations that differ by countries, the overall market size is difficult to estimate. However, the fastest growing market is most definitely the United States. In 2019, the sports betting market in the U.S. was valued at $60 billion. Research also shows that due to new technologies and digital connectivity, the market is expected to surge in the near future.

Investment Updates

  • As sports businesses continue to grow, venture investing is becoming more popular with institutional and retail investors. Since 2012, investments for startups related to sports have grown nearly 30% each year. In 2015 alone, investors spent nearly $1 billion into sport-tech startups. With the US reaching $75 billion by 2019, investors are actively looking for disruptive and innovative technologies to boost businesses in the sports industry. In terms of traditional sports stocks, the most popular one by far is Disney. Disney is the parent company of ESPN, which naturally means they have a strong presence with the media and advertising companies. Another popular stock is Under Armour. While not as big as Nike or Adidas, this firm has made some substantive changes within the past few years. This in turn has made the company attractive and profitable to many investors.

The sports events market

The worldwide sports events market, defined as all ticketing, media and marketing revenues for major sports, was worth €45 billion ($64 billion) in 2009. Football (soccer) remains king: Global revenues for this sport equal €20 billion ($28 billion) yearly — almost as much as the combined €23 billion ($32 billion) in revenues for all U.S. sports, Formula 1 racing, tennis and golf (see figure 1). In Europe alone, football is a €16 billion ($22 billion) business, with the five biggest leagues accounting for half of the market, and the top 20 teams comprising roughly one-quarter of the market.2 In general, the most popular sports, such as football and those based in the United States, are growing faster than tennis and golf. Rugby is emerging and has grown exponentially since becoming a professional sport in 1995 (see figure 2).

A country-by-country breakdown finds that the sports industry is growing faster than GDP both in fast-growing economies, such as the booming BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China), and in more mature markets in Europe and North America.

The economy of sports also reflects its cyclical nature. Many of the world’s premier sporting events occur every two to four years — the FIFA World Cup and Summer Olympics, for example, take place every four years. Figure 3 shows that yearly sports revenues have grown steadily, yet how that money is spent changes every year. In 2008, for example, major events accounted for 8 percent of worldwide sports revenues thanks largely to the Beijing Olympics and UEFA Euro 2008 football tournament in Austria and Switzerland. In quieter years (2007, for example), major events make up barely 1 percent of worldwide sports revenues.

The sports value chain

  • How do sports create value? Rights owners define the structure of professional sports around the world. They set the rules, organize the events and take responsibility for generating revenues from matches, media and marketing rights. The sports value chain is structured around following pillars shown in figure :
  • Properties. The properties managed by rights owners are the intangible assets that draw fans and money. They include a wide range of parties, including leagues (such as the Premier League), pro tours (golf’s PGA Tour), teams (the New York Yankees) and athletes (Roger Federer, Lionel Messi).
  • Rights management. Historically, monetization of properties was based on gate “take” (revenues) but now professional sports depend on media and marketing rights for more sources of revenues. Rights owners, or sports agencies acting on their behalf, not only structure the deals but also trade media and marketing rights.
  • Events. Effective rights management depends first on operating live events. An enjoyable experience for fans can create additional opportunities for revenue.
  • Content. The stadiums can only seat a certain number of fans, but packaging content for broadcasters’ and sponsors’ needs is a vital part of creating revenue in modern sports.
  • Structured around these pillars, the sports value chain becomes a virtuous circle. Shaping a property can help increase its value through tailored rights management and content packaging can make it more attractive. For example, when cricket organizers created “Twenty20” cricket in 2003, shortening the typical game from several days to a few hours, they shaped a format better suited to live broadcasting. This sports value chain applies similarly to the entertainment industry — including book publishing, music production and other live-event-based markets (see sidebar: The wide world of sports).

Media

  • For networks, sports has become the most secure way to obtain viewers in today’s fragmented media market — “DVR-proof” content in an era of delayed viewing, video-on-demand, and online streaming. Across the world and across all sports, viewers and advertisers are turning to sports. The NFL’s Super Bowl XLVIII in February 2014 was the highest-rated program in U.S. history, even though the game was one of the least competitive in years. Five months later, the FIFA World Cup championship game drew about one billion viewers worldwide, the culmination of a month of robust ratings.
  • For some broadcasters, these trends are translating into impressive results. ESPN, which broadcasts nearly every major American sport, accounts for roughly half of the revenue of its parent company, Disney. For others, particularly free-to-air channels, high ratings don’t guarantee immediate results, as advertising returns often lag the costs of acquiring rights. However, the networks use the events for brand-building and cross-promotion.
  • The “premier” matches involving leading teams can bring a bump in ratings. For example, matches involving star club Paris Saint Germain in France’s Ligue 1 provide, on average, almost two times the audience of matches involving other teams. Creating “must-see TV” is perhaps the best way to build ratings.
  • Pay-TV networks, which generate subscriber revenues on top of advertising money, are seeking to serve their viewers all year long by locking in the best matches and championship games. ESPN’s schedule includes playoff games in football, baseball, and basketball as well as the college football championship. beIN SPORTS combines a large offering of premium sports content, including European football leagues, major global events such as the World Cup, and events in tennis, handball, Formula 1, basketball, and rugby.
  • Aside from the ratings potential of live programming, sports also offers passionate fans and, in an era of multi-screen viewing, a wealth of opportunities on alternative platforms such as websites and apps.

Leagues

  • Within the sports ecosystem, leagues organize the seasons and championships; in most cases they also play an intermediary role in flowing revenues to clubs, particularly media rights money. Media rights account for 40 percent of the revenues for Europe’s top 10 clubs; marketing and ticketing respectively represent 30 percent and 20 percent, and the remaining 10 percent come from player transfers. Leagues’ economic viability depends on some actions leagues can take to maximize revenues by providing high volume and high value.
  • Organizing competition. One simple way to increase volume is adding clubs to a league. France’s Ligue 1 added two clubs in 2002; the U.S.’s “big four” professional leagues (the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL) have each added between four and eight teams since the late 1980s. For these leagues, new teams have meant additional games and new geographical markets to sell to media, sponsors, and spectators. For the Big Ten, a U.S. college sports conference based in the Midwest, recent expansion to 14 teams has allowed the league to offer its lucrative TV network across a wider geographic range, including the New York and Washington metropolitan areas.
  • Creating “valuable” events. Like any product, sports have a perceived value that the leagues can boost. All need both defensive and offensive strategies for advancing their leagues. Defensive strategies include defending sports’ ethical values (such as fair play), combating risks such as violence, and condemning cheating. Offensive strategies aim to ensure compelling competitions that drive ratings and media revenue.
  • Value of league media rights correlates very closely to the potential number of “premium matches” — those involving two top teams (such as Real Madrid vs. Barcelona in Spain, or Chelsea-Manchester in the United Kingdom). Regardless of any other factors like consumer economics or competition among broadcasters, the UK’s Premier League has media rights worth twice as much as France and Italy’s leagues — and twice as many premium matches.
  • What is the Premier League’s secret? It has seven of Europe’s highest-performing clubs, providing broadcasters with a minimum of 42 premium matches. Italy similarly has five teams ranked in the UEFA’s top 50, providing at least 20 top matches. In other words, it is in the league’s best interest to have as many high-performing clubs as possible — rather than one team dominating the pack — because that gives a lot more premium inventory to offer broadcasters. Thus one lever is optimizing revenue sharing across clubs. In the United States this leads to high levels of parity in the NFL, which has had 10 different teams in the past five Super Bowls.
  • European leagues have another advantage in that teams can be relegated or promoted, based on their records. This can add to the uncertainty and tension of the football season, and thus increase fans’ excitement.
  • Structuring media rights tenders. For leagues, the best TV rights deals carefully dole out allotments with a goal to optimize the overall return and, ultimately, to increase the potential attractiveness of the overall championship.
  • In practice, this means managing the premium matches — which station gets which games, which games get which time slots — compared with the “bulk” of the season. The premium games offer the most revenue per match, as they are most attractive to more potential bidders; at the same time, premium time slots offer a huge amount of potential. Both are attractive to free-to-air and pay-TV broadcasters. The NFL, which traditionally plays its games on Sunday afternoons, has long had Sunday and Monday night games with huge viewerships. In recent years it has added Thursday night games, and it is reintroducing some Saturday games in 2014.
  • Many leagues are getting creative with their digital rights, tailoring their deals toward non-linear viewing and multi-screen usage, which opens the market to social networks and specialized websites. The NFL’s deal with DirecTV includes the Red Zone Channel, which switches viewers to games where big plays are about to occur. When selling TV rights, leagues can develop allotment strategies that optimize the value of both TV and alternate platforms.

Clubs

  • Clubs play the central role in the sports ecosystem — the origin of the excitement for most fans, and, ultimately, where the money ends up at the end of the value chain.
  • Clubs get their revenues from ticketing, merchandising, sponsorships, and media rights. Teams can protect and increase revenues by carefully watching three key indicators, all “synergistic” and in some ways overlapping: performance, as winning generates interest, which generates media revenue; the presence of star players, who drive ticketing, merchandising, and sponsorships; and loyalty, which drives, in particular, ticketing revenues. So how do you allocate money to improve these three indicators?
  • Winning performances are the best guarantee for protecting revenues. While winning is a function of many factors — coaching, team chemistry, infrastructure, and luck — in general the teams that perform best are those that invest the most to acquire the best players. For some teams, that can come from spending on transfers (or free agents in North American sports), as “buying” external players can help teams — particularly those that lack the time or money to invest in home-grown player systems — build strong rosters in short time frames. Building a home-grown player system is similar to venture capital: stock up on high-potential young players, understanding that few will become stars, and many may end up being sold or traded to other teams during their prime years.
  • For clubs, two major income sources (besides media) have not yet been maximized, particularly in Europe: marketing and ticketing. North American sports have already made huge leaps in selling stadium naming rights, developing sponsors, and improving merchandising in external markets. Stadium management (through areas such as tickets, affiliate programs, hospitality, and stadium expansion) is just starting to develop in Europe, but there are steps to improve grey-market activities and no-show issues to reduce revenue losses. Still, particularly in Europe’s football leagues, most clubs are not yet profitable. Tomorrow’s champions will tackle costs and revenues behind sound asset-building strategies.

Brands

  • The sports sponsorship market is worth an estimated $50 billion per year. The brands that succeed in this arena are those that select the right partner clubs, leagues, and athletes, and choose the right types of partnerships (official partners, suppliers, or stadium naming, to name a few options), based on their objectives. While geographical reach, price, and popularity are obvious components, the values that a certain sports property carry are also crucial. For example, Nike’s contract with Swiss tennis star Roger Federer is a natural fit, as the player brings his elegance, style, and success to a brand that seeks to embody those attributes.
  • Developing a comprehensive portfolio approach is the best step for a brand to achieve its objectives in sports sponsorship. Samsung has successfully pushed this concept over the past several years with a portfolio that covers more than 30 sports. In particular, its soccer strategy includes official partnership with a national team, team naming, shirt sponsorship with Chelsea, and stadium banners. In 2010, Samsung became the best-known European football sponsor among telecommunications suppliers, after going unranked just five years earlier.
  • Once a partnership deal is closed, the main differentiating factor is activation — not just through traditional means such as banners and ads, but also digital and social media. In other words, can a brand tap into the emotional link between fans and their favorite sports, teams, and players, while communicating its values and product offerings? Consider McDonalds’ successful multimedia sponsorship strategy during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The brand’s Gol! theme, featured on french fry boxes, allowed customers to play via a mobile phone app, and the campaign was also supported by a website and a Twitter account. Altogether, McDonald’s multi-platform strategy made it one of the most prominent brands at the world’s most popular sporting event.

How to hit a home run

  • Sports will remain one of the most valuable parts of the media and entertainment industry globally for years to come. In an increasingly digitized world, it has not only resisted the value drain of other types of content, but it also appears to be providing significant growth opportunities in the future.
  • For media companies, leagues, clubs, and sponsors, tackling strategic and operational challenges will help extract the most value and build a sustainable industry going forward

Market projections

Going forward, the next sports cycle will likely bring somewhat following growth.

  • Media rights revenues will plateau. In the wake of the economic downturn, media rights revenues will likely level off, as broadcasters face increased pressure to reduce programming costs. Negotiations are often based on bargaining power of only a few broadcasters (or in some cases just one), making outcomes difficult to predict, but conservatively we estimate overall media rights to remain stable. Because broadcasters acquire media rights in multi-year contracts, the full impact of the financial crisis may not be felt for a few years. For football, this plateau in media rights revenues likely translates to a growth slowdown from 8 percent to 4 percent per year.
  • Ticket sales and sponsorships will bounce back. Growth in ticket sales and sponsorships is typically tied to macroeconomic factors. A recovering economy should help bolster these areas again.
  • “Premium” content: Broadcasters’ battles will continue. Worldwide sports remain premium and exclusive content for broadcasters — attracting large audiences — but making money may prove elusive as consumption patterns change, the Internet proliferates and new players emerge. How will multiscreen media drive additional revenues for broadcasters? What new business models will be required to generate content on smartphones and tablets? How to deal with the potential risks of content piracy in an increasingly digital world? What are the best strategies for traditional broadcasters facing competition from Internet-based platforms willing to acquire and distribute content? These and other issues will continue to challenge broadcasters.
  • Demand is growing, but supply won’t always keep up. Increasing the amount of exposure sports properties receive is appealing to sponsors, but team sports are usually limited by a finite number of teams and games (for example, 18 to 20 in football leagues, and 16 in the NFL). Even in individual sports such as golf and tennis, the calendar constrains how many public appearances athletes can make. Hence, even though demand is high, offers for sponsored platforms cannot match it, fueling a race for longer and more exclusive contracts. Sponsors will have to scrutinize their sports investments more effectively, a vital issue as the industry moves into the future.

RIL business of sports

  • The wave of new stadiums around the globe, the growing size of television contracts and the continued proliferation of sports advertising portends an industry that continues to soar, even as the global economy climbs out of recession.
  • RIL has completed acquisition of IMG Worldwide LLC’s stake in their sports management joint venture IMG Reliance Ltd (IMG-R). The company has, on December 28, 2020, completed the acquisition of equity shares of IMGR. Accordingly, IMG-R has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company.
  • RIL had formed an equal joint venture with IMG Worldwide, an international sports marketing and management company, in 2010 to develop, market and manage sports and entertainment in India.
  • IMG is a global leader in sports, fashion, events and media, operating in more than 30 countries, and is a part of the Endeavor network.
  • IMG-R is engaged in the business of creation, management, implementation and commercialisation of sporting, fashion and entertainment events in India with turnover of Rs 181.70 crore (including GST of Rs 25.79 crore) and a net profit of Rs 16.35 crore in FY20.
  • IMG-R has worked towards developing these segment in India through various ventures, including The Hero Indian Super League, Maharashtra Open (Formerly the Aircel Chennai Open). IMGR also host the glamorous event Lakme Fashion Week in India. IMG-R has also collaborated with the Basketball Federation of India and the All India Football Presentation.
  • The most recent accolade of IMG-R has been winning the global mandate to market Cricket Australia’s ‘Virtual Inventory’ rights, after a competitive bid process in November this year. IMG-Reliance will be the exclusive global agency for Cricket Australia to bring on board brand partners for the virtual inventory that features in the television coverage available to viewers outside of Australia, including the Indian subcontinent.

IMG-R to rebranded as Reliance to takeover its 50% stake

  • RIL has rebranded IMG Reliance as its completely owned subsidiary post-acquisition of 50 per cent shares held by the wholly-owned subsidiary of IMG, the MG Singapore Pte. Ltd.
  • RIL announced the rebranding of its sports and lifestyle business IMG Reliance Ltd to RISE Worldwide Ltd. This is in line with Reliance’s plan to venture out on its own after buying out its partner IMG Worldwide in December.
  • Its clients include Indian Premier League (IPL) teams, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and several top Indian cricketers. IMG-R also owned and operated the Tata Open Maharashtra tennis tournament.
  • RISE Worldwide will continue to drive the full portfolio of brand properties formerly owned and operated under the banner of IMG-Reliance Ltd.
  • The transition to an independent brand identity is aimed at enabling various verticals currently within the sports and lifestyle businesses an autonomy to operate and create industry driving strategies and world class consumer experiences, as it focuses on further investing in the segment, the company said in a statement.
  • The RISE Worldwide portfolio includes sports and sponsorship consulting, fashion and sustainability platform building, athlete talent management, licensing, broadcast production, lifestyle and entertainment with properties such as Hero Indian Super League, Lakme Fashion Week, Tata Open Maharashtra, Jio Wonderland, The Voice of Fashion, SU.RE Sustainable Resolution and others.
  • RISE Worldwide aims to provide a comprehensive solution to the sports, lifestyle and entertainment industries as one inclusive force creating a symbiotic ecosystem that engages in nation building by inspiring the youth through our various initiatives.
  • The company’s athlete talent management division includes cricketers such as Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, and Krunal Pandya. The sports sponsorship and consultancy division represents brands like Dream11, boAt, BKT Tires etc in India and abroad.
  • The company was selected to exclusively market the global virtual inventory of the recently concluded Indian Cricket Team’s tour of Australia. Equipped with a broadcast production setup, it is also looking at engaging in sports production contracts across the world.
  • As first set of clients, the RISE Talent Management division had signed three sports personalities with India’s prolific cricket Rohit Sharma, promising youngster Hardik Pandya who recently with his stellar performance in Asia Cup as well as ICC World Cup T20 won the hearts of fans and pundits alike, and Ace Indian Tennis player Leander Peas who for over two decades now has consistently held the Indian tricolour high in global events.
  • RISE’s unparalleled industry knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit in sports and lifestyle property management led it to foray into talent management.
  • RISE will work closely with the newly signed talents’ on strategic career management and providing extensive resources and expertise to generate value in all facets and stages of career, except for their individual playing contracts. The firm will also look into recurring revenue streams via endorsements, appearances and licensing.
  • RISE’s entry and expansion into Talent Management emanates from its strong portfolio of Sports and Fashion properties in India that includes India’s premier Football League- Indian Super League, Asia’s only ATP Tour competition Chennai Open and the bi-annual Lakme Fashion Week amongst others.
  • The immediate priority would be to identify locations to establish sporting academies. We are planning to establish sporting academies to breed and train sporting legends.
  • Basketball Really — RIL group has signed an agreement for the formation of Indian Professional Basketball League (IBL). Apparently, Basketball Federation of India has given the go ahead to this agreement which involves commercial rights to basketball in India right from broadcasting, sponsorship, merchandising etc.

Betting Big On The Success That Is IPL

  • Let’s face it. Even with all the controversies surrounding it, IPL indeed was a game changer of sports. The whole concept of professional leagues in sports germinated in India with IPL and has now become a phenomenon. Apparently, IMG was the sports agency which helped established IPL and RISE is now trying to replicate the same model in alternative sports.
  • RIL already owns Mumbai Indians and so do other corporate like GMR Group, Kingfisher etc. Moreover, UB Group has also made huge investments to put India on the Formula One map with its team Force India which may not have made a big impact is surely improving with time. Mahindra group already has a tie-up with the NBA for promoting basketball among the youth.
  • A 30 year contract means that both the involved parties are putting long term commitments into making this venture a success. The focus initially is to help improve the infrastructure and develop the sport in India. So RIL will work from the grass routes to think of getting a return on the investment from the venture
  • New avenues for sporting talent in India: Over 1 Billion population and the only sport people are crazy about is Cricket. A lot of this is attributed to the lack of investments in developing other sports in India and obviously the fame and money that only cricket players enjoy right now. With new avenues opening up and enough financial backing, we might see a new breed of youngster picking up basketball as an option

RIL Forays into 720 Bn USD Global Sports Market was originally published in Exponential Technologies / Industrial Revolutions Based Infrastructure on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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