Gujarat Titans to add more sponsors as fandom for franchise grows, says COO

gujarat titans

One of the youngest Indian Premier League (IPL) teams, Gujarat Titans (GT), is adding more sponsors to its already extensive list of over 32 partners for the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The franchise’s top official said that the team is in talks with more brands to bring them on board as sponsors.

“This year, we have 33 partners, compared to 27 last year. We are also talking to a couple more (brands) which want to join us. We will sign on a couple of more deals," Gujarat Titans chief operating officer (COO) Colonel (retd) Arvinder Singh told Moneycontrol.

This year, GT signed new brands like Torrent Group, The Pokemon Company, Spinner, AMUL Protein, LordsMed, Dream Game Studios, Finkeda, Euro Foods, Fujifilm InstaX, Cricket Icons Figurines and PlayR.

Singh pointed out that, along with new signings, many brands have renewed their deals with the team.

"People who started their journey with Gujarat Titans, as our partners... seven out of the original 10 who were on our jersey in the first year continue to be with us,” he added.

Brands like Jio, Astral Pipes, Equitas Small Finance Bank, Havmor Ice-creams have renewed their partnership with the franchise for this season.

Singh said that there has been a strong traction from regional, national and international brands this year.

The franchise is also in the middle of ownership change with Torrent Group, looking to acquire a majority stake in Gujarat Titans from owners CVC Capital Partners. The private equity firm had bought the team for Rs 5,625 crore.

Along with sponsorship, Singh also highlighted the growth in other metrics like ticket sales and merchandise revenue.

“Ticket sales have grown 20 percent in the last two years, more than what we had targeted,” he said.

He added that on sponsorship, licensing and merchandising, the team has recorded 100 percent growth since its first year of playing IPL in 2022.

"In the first year (2023) of playing the home and away format, we exceeded the target we had set. In 2024, we grew that number by 11 percent," he said of ticket sales.

The Narendra Modi Stadium in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad made a Guinness World record in the 2022 IPL final when 1,01,566 people watched the clash between Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals, with the home team lifting the trophy in its first year of the league.

"The season in 2023 was the first when we did our home games at Ahmedabad. There was no yardstick at the largest stadium of the world, which we call home, as IPL had never happened in the new stadium," Singh said. The stadium can seat 1.30 lakh people.

Close to 40 percent revenue came from ticket sales for GT in 2023 when the franchise went all out to drive stadium footfalls, including running 100 shuttles between the stadium to the parking lot, and increasing the manpower from 100 to 3,000 to handle the crowd at the stadium.

On an average, IPL franchisees’ earnings from match-day revenue, including ticket collections, merchandising, food and beverages, account for around 20 percent of their overall revenue.

The fandom for GT is growing online as well, Singh said.

"More than half a million people have installed our app just in this season," he added.

Singh also said that since year one of the Titans, the franchise has enjoyed a strong fan following.

"From an owned audience standpoint, the general yardstick is about 10 percent of your overall followers that you have on various platforms of social media. I'm sitting on close to 3 million first party data today. And that is certainly not 10 percent of the total following. It is three times more than the average. It is this 30 percent which drives others to join the GT family."

Singh considers GT among the top four IPL teams.

With a brand value of $69 million in 2024, GT recorded only a 5 percent growth versus 2023, according to brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance's 2024 report.

GT came at the eighth position in terms of brand strength index (BSI), with a score of 60.2 out of 100.

Brand strength is analysed on two core pillars ---perceptions from market research and behaviours, which are indicative of brand preference, price premium, and advocacy. Each brand is assigned a BSI score out of 100.