Sports Sponsorship - The 'Cricket Ambush Marketing' Controversy

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Case Details:

Case Code : MKTG046
Case Length : 11 Pages
Period : 2002
Pub Date : 2003
Teaching Note : Not Available
Organization : International Cricket Council, LG Electronics, Britannia, Philips India and HPCL
Industry : Media and Advertising
Countries : India

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"Every major sporting event provides protection to their partners and anyone involved in elite sport would recognize that this is an essential component of being able to stage these events."

- Malcolm Speed (Speed), Chief Executive, International Cricket Council, in 2002.

"We have been made victims in a commercial battle between the BCCI and the ICC."

- Ganesh Mahalingam (Ganesh), Marketing Head, LG Electronics, in January 2003.

The ICC/BCCI/Cricket Players/Corporates Tussle

In December 2002, media reports world over provided details of heated debates involving companies such as Britannia, LG, Philips India and HPCL, players of the Indian cricket team, the International Cricket Council (ICC)¹ and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)².

The cause of the tension: ‘ambush marketing'³ clauses recently bought out by the ICC, that restricted cricket players from endorsing products other than ICC's official sponsors for any major championships conducted by the ICC during 2002-07. ICC developed ambush marketing clauses to safeguard the rights of companies who had paid huge sums of money to obtain the sponsorship rights for all matches to be held during 2002-07.

The official sponsors had reportedly bought the rights for $ 550 million from the Global Cricket Corporation (GCC), ICC's marketing partner. The organization was taking pro-active measures to ensure that the problems it (and the official sponsors) had faced earlier due to ambush marketing tactics by the unofficial sponsors could be avoided.

The Indian cricket players strongly opposed ICC's decision, claiming that the contract terms were unfavorable to their financial interests. India's star cricketers Sourav Ganguly (Ganguly) and Sachin Tendulkar (Tendulkar) even went to the extent of threatening to boycott the ICC Champions Trophy to be held in Sri Lanka during September 2002. Indian players were not the only ones who were against the new rules. Players from South Africa and Australia, as well as the Federation of International Cricketers'Association (FICA),⁴ spoke against ICC and supported the Indian cricketers. The official sponsors as well as the ICC realized that the presence of cricketers like Tendulkar, Ganguly and Rahul Dravid (Dravid) was important to draw crowds to the matches.

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1] ICC is the governing body for the affairs of international cricket.

2] BCCI is the governing body of cricket in India and reportedly one of the richest governing bodies of cricket in the world.

3] Ambush marketing can be defined as ‘an organization becoming an unauthorized part of an event at the expense of the rival company's association with that event.'Considered to be a part of competitive marketing, ambush marketing aims at increasing brand awareness and differentiating oneself from competitors.

4] An international organization that represents players from various cricket test match playing countries.