India’s Board of Control for Cricket (BCC) has banned Indian Premier League (IPL) teams from engaging in sponsorship deals with cryptocurrency exchanges. According to the Economic Times, the decision sparked controversy among a few IPL franchise owners who received interest from big crypto companies.
Some crypto exchanges have already approached these IPL teams ahead of the next T20 cricket league season. However, negotiations had to be stopped suddenly because of the decision taken by the BCC. “It’s a major opportunity loss. The kind of money they were offering for the main sponsorship was 1.5 times of what the current sponsor is paying. They wanted to build their brand with our association and were ready to pay for that,” one anonymous executive from a cricket team’s franchisee told the Economic Times.
It is unknown which crypto exchanges halted their ongoing negotiations with IPL teams for future seasons. Still, exchanges like CoinDCX and CoinSwitch Kuber already had sponsorship deals in the ICC T20 World Cup.
Permanent Ban on Crypto Sports Sponsorship?
“While the members of the IPL governing council may not have an issue with cryptocurrency exchanges advertising, it’s a matter of optics. BCCI secretary Jay Shah is the son of the union home minister, and the central government is in the process of bringing a crypto bill in the upcoming winter session of parliament. Until there is some clarity, he may not be seen allowing crypto ads,” an unnamed employee from the BCC commented.
Yesterday, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Indian Finance Minister, said that the government has no proposal to recognize Bitcoin (BTC) as a currency or legal tender. “No, sir,” Sitharaman replied when she was asked about the matter. As Finance Magnates recently reported, a new bill in India is set to ban all private cryptocurrencies in the nation. Furthermore, the bill seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India.
