Apparel Sponsorship History of IPL - The First Ten Years

This post will act as a supplement to the post I made earlier in May 2016. (Read it here!) I have made a better chart this time which you can see below.

Click for Enlarged Image

Everything about apparel sponsorships in the first nine seasons was explained in the article I have previously posted and I will be speaking only about the 10th season in this post. There were no major changes to the manufacturers' line up this year for the teams. RCB and MI continued their associations with Zeven and Performax respectively while Tyka reduced the number of teams it sponsored in the last season from 3 to 2 (KXIP and SRH) with GL signing a deal with Sasperil Greenlands (SG). DD also signed a new manufacturer - T10 Sports for making its kits.

Two teams did not have any official apparel sponsor in this season; KKR continued not to have a kitmaker while RPS did not continue with Seven, the brand owned by MS Dhoni.

Captains align behind the IPL-10 trophy and the Bats signed for MCC's Spirit Cricket Pledge at the Opening Ceremony

With a decade of IPL gone, new and exciting things await the fans from the 11th season taking place in 2018. I expect huge changes to take place in the next season with international players in the apparel industry making way once again into the IPL arena. With two suspended teams returning, it would be interesting to see what their brand-strategy would be for their return.

What changes in the branding and apparel would you like to see in the next season of IPL? Drop in your comments below!

The Tenth Year of the RCB's Jersey! (Episode 10 : 2017)

Before my blog gets buried deep in the internet of things, I am officially returning on this and making the fifth post of this year today! This was something that had to be posted during the IPL this year but has been delayed to this point where we are only four months away from the start of the next season. Before getting into the exciting mood of new things that are bound to happen in the eleventh season, let's get back to the tenth anniversary of IPL that happened in 2017.

The team in Home apparel for 2017.

As usual, I tried to predict the jersey design for this year in the blog post I wrote in March of this year before IPL-10 started. (Read it here!) The prediction turned out to be 'almost true' with the retention of Zeven's base design of 2016; Gionee making its way to the belly and an unaltered Kingfisher logo on the back. Though the other sponsors were accurate in the prediction, the placement and colour masks of the logos on the sleeves slightly changed in the real one.

THE HOME JERSEY

THE AWAY JERSEY

As you can notice and I predicted, Gionee acquired the spotlight this year with their logo placed on the prominent front part of the jersey. The IPL 10th anniversary logo was given its mandatory slot on the sleeve and surprisingly, Britannia's very long association saw an end this year. The slot used by Britannia was taken by Duroflex Mattresses in this season.

Virat Kohli and AB DeVilliers in Away jerseys.

LYF+ Smartphone was replaced by Jio Telecom, a flagship brand from the same parent company. Two versions of Jio logo have been used on the jerseys, the one with red background on the Home and Game for Green jersey and the one with blue background on the Away jersey. As stated earlier, Kingfisher and Lloyd continue to enjoy their real estate on the right-chest and the back of the jersey respectively.

The Game for Green jersey remained very similar to the Home attire only with the primary colour changed to a lighter shade of green. Also, the twitter handles of the players which were used on the green jerseys traditionally by RCB were dropped and replaced with actual names similar to other games in this season.

The team in the green apparel for 2017.

Apart from jerseys, there were no changes in the trousers with Zeven and 7UP retaining their slots. The headgear continued to display Himalaya Men logo on one side while a new entrant WROGN, Virat Kohli's own brand made its way to the back of the caps replacing Acer from last year.

The team in the Home jersey for 2017.

This season was hugely disappointing for the ardent fanbase of RCB. I would call it '10 Years of Badluck' and eagerly hope for the next season to be ours! Massive changes are expected to happen for the 2018 season for the team as well as the tournament. I expect lots of changes on the RCB jerseys too, with a huge possibility of change in the apparel sponsor as well.

Stay tuned for more!