Ankit Pandey returns to Sony for his next sports sales innings

MUMBAI: Some career moves are transfers. Others feel like homecomings.

For Ankit Pandey, it is the latter.

Pandey has returned to Sony Pictures Networks India as group head – ad sales (sports), marking his second stint with the broadcaster. He joins from JioStar, where he was responsible for selling some of the biggest properties in Indian sport.

It is a move that puts a familiar face back in the Sony dugout — and one with plenty of runs on the board.

At JioStar, Pandey was part of the team monetising marquee cricket across television, digital and connected TV. His recent innings came with some eye-catching numbers: more than Rs 240 crore in advertising revenue across bilateral cricket and the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, a 243 per cent year-on-year jump in bilateral cricket revenue and 173 per cent achievement against his annual revenue budget.

The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup alone delivered Rs 204.15 crore in commercial revenue, or 101 per cent of target.

He also helped turn OpenAI’s “Prompt of the Day” into one of the tournament’s flagship branded-content properties, working across the T20 World Cup and England-India bilateral cricket.

But Pandey’s story is not simply about cricket, targets and revenue charts.

His career has been built around a rather more old-fashioned proposition: relationships matter.

More than a decade after starting out in event production, telecom sales and targeted television advertising, he has steadily moved through Amagi, Viacom18, Sony and JioStar, building a career around understanding what advertisers actually need and finding the right media answer.

At Amagi, he worked on targeted television advertising and sold inventory across Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee News and IBN7. At Viacom18, he moved into advertising sales and brand solutions for the Nickelodeon cluster. His first Sony stint saw him work on Sony MAX, helping advertisers use Hindi movies to build reach and visibility.

Then came sport.

And Pandey clearly found his pitch.

At JioStar, he moved through manager, account director and associate director roles, taking responsibility for monetising IPL, BCCI events, Olympics, ISL, bilateral cricket and ICC properties across television, mobile and connected TV.

The numbers followed.

So did the relationships.

His client roster has included OpenAI, Bajaj Finserv, GCPL, Hell Energy, Optimum Nutrition, Invesco, SBI Life, Nippon India Mutual Fund and Crompton. The job, as Pandey describes it, is less about selling inventory and more about connecting brands with the right sporting moment.

That philosophy is evident in the way he describes himself.

He says he believes in turning brief encounters into rewarding relationships. His personal rulebook is equally direct: keep improving, take on the jobs others avoid, replace vague aspirations with precise goals, never make excuses and, above all, show up.

His favourite line may be the most revealing: “My work doesn’t involve climbing mountains but yes, I do like to move the mountains every now and then.”

There is also a youthful curiosity running through the sales professional. Meeting new people, solving new problems and contributing beyond the narrow confines of a job description, he says, are among the things he enjoys most.

That matters in sports advertising, where the product is rarely just a 30-second spot.

It is the match, the audience, the moment, the brand idea, the content integration and increasingly the ability to make television and digital work together.

Pandey now returns to Sony at an interesting time for sports broadcasting, with television still offering the scale and shared experience that live sport does better than almost anything else.

His own love for the game, he says, remains unchanged.

New innings, then. Same player. Different scoreboard.

And if Pandey has his way, there should be plenty of runs for Sony, its advertisers and, presumably, himself.