MUMBAI\/NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Indian fantasy sports platform Dream11 has initiated talks with the country’s cricket board to exit its 3.58 billion rupee ($41 million) jersey sponsorship deal, the Economic Times reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
The move followed the central government ban on real-money online games, including fantasy sports, under the newly enacted Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill which threatens the survival of the popular gaming sector.<\/p>\n
The law prohibits advertising, promotion and sponsorship of such platforms, making Dream11’s continued association with the Indian cricket team legally untenable, the report said.<\/p>\n
Dream11 signed a three-year agreement with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2023 to feature its logo on the national team’s jerseys.<\/p>\n
“These are watertight agreements and cannot be exited unilaterally. It will have to be a mutual decision since the law of the land doesn’t permit advertising of banned games,” one source said.<\/p>\n
Dream11 commands a valuation of $8 billion. The new bill states that anyone who offers money games after the law comes into force could face a jail term of up to three years and a fine.<\/p>\n
BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia did not immediately respond to a Reuters call and messages seeking confirmation of whether Dream11 has approached the board about ending their jersey sponsorship deal.<\/p>\n
Saikia told The Times of India newspaper on Thursday that the BCCI will not do anything that is not permitted by the government or by any law of the country.<\/p>\n
“The BCCI will not violate any of the laws enforced in the country. That’s very clear,” he was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
The development comes ahead of the Asia Cup, which begins on September 9, leaving the BCCI with limited time to secure a new sponsor.<\/p>\n
($1 = 87.3260 Indian rupees)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Swati Bhat and Amlan Chakraborty, editing by Ed Osmond)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUMBAI\/NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Indian fantasy sports platform Dream11 has initiated talks with the country’s cricket board to exit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,12914,740,68470,636,19329,68471,85],"class_list":["post-92274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bcci","tag-cricket","tag-cricket-board","tag-fantasy-sports","tag-indian-cricket-team","tag-sponsorship-deal","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}