India's leading Telecom giant and GSM Mobile Service provider Bharti Airtel has signed up the deal on Thursday with ESPN STAR Sports as title sponsor for Champions League Twenty20 for a period of five years.
The agreement allows Airtel to have exclusive rights on Mobile content such as video clips of Premiership matches and Uefa Champion’s League highlights, classic goals and games of Manchester United. Also, the Mobile service provider on its GSM network can show match feeds and reports and editorial features.
As part of the agreement, Airtel will have rights to on ground title sponsorship for five years beginning with the inaugural edition in October, 2009.The tournament would be played across three venues - Bangalore, New Delhi and Hyderabad and will now be called Airtel Champions League Twenty20.A total of 12 teams from seven test playing nations will participate in the inaugural edition. The 16-day league will have 23 Twenty20 matches.
Bharti Airtel director - marketing Shireesh Joshi, said "We have seen a great synergy between our brand and cricket, since both cater and connect to a wide spectrum of consumer segments." Earlier in May, Bharti Airtel had signed an exclusive five-year deal with Manchester United to become the first Indian sponsor of the leading football club.
