MUMBAI: With live sports across the globe coming to a grinding halt due to the Covid-19 crisis, Indian sports marketing firms are pivoting towards online solutions. Firms like IOS Sports & Entertainment,
Baseline Ventures, Cornerstone Sports & Entertainment are all looking at new digital options to capitalise on their clients’ reach and popularity using online channels.
IOS Sports, which manages commercial interests of
Mary Kom,
Vijender singh,
Hima Das and others, has launched a new digital wing ‘Influrate’, which the company said will cater to a growing demand for social influencers in the market.
“I don’t see any sporting property in the next one year and all of us will have to look at virtual space till things come back to normalcy,” said Neerav Tomar, MD & CEO, IOS Sports & Entertainment. “We have been planning to have a digital division for a long time and as we have many influencers from the sports, this makes a lot of business sense.” The digital division has signed a six-month digital deal for Mary Kom and Vijender Singh with Curefit for online fitness classes, and with Tata Tea for one post each on Twitter and Instagram.
Another leading firm, Baseline Ventures, which manages sportspersons including PV Sindhu, Ravindra Jadeja, Prithvi Shaw and Smriti Mandhana, has started producing its own exclusive digital content. In the works is a 10-episodic sports chat show, ‘Double Trouble’ on YouTube and Facebook, wherein cricketers Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues will talk to athletes from different sports on their life. The first episode, featuring Sindhu has already received 145,000 views in three days.