MAM
Disney Star onboards eight sponsors for PKL season 11
Mumbai: The Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) returns for its eleventh season, to enhance the growing popularity of Kabaddi in India. Disney Star, the official broadcaster, has secured eight sponsors for the league across various platforms, including Dream11, Shriram Finance, ROFF, Parimatch Sports, HP Lubricants, and Mother Dairy, solidifying PKL’s status as a top sporting event in the country.
This season aims to attract diverse audiences through exciting brand collaborations and a mix of sports and entertainment. Fans can expect thrilling Kabaddi action along with fresh content to improve the viewing experience.
“The upcoming season of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) promises to elevate the festive spirit, captivating both fans and brands with its unmatched spirit of competition it represents. As India’s premier home-grown sport, PKL continues to push new boundaries with every season, driving record-breaking engagement and interest. For brands, it presents a unique, integrated marketing platform that reaches millions of highly engaged viewers, offering exceptional visibility and impact. We are thrilled to welcome a diverse array of brands this season, who not only champion India’s indigenous sport but also recognize the immense value and reach PKL offers. With Disney Star’s unparalleled TV and digital coverage, we are set to deliver powerful engagement opportunities that connect brands with passionate audiences like never before,” said Disney Star’s head of network ad sales, Ajit Varghese.
PKL season 11 begins on 18 October 2024, at the GMC Balayogi Sports Complex in Hyderabad, featuring a three-city format with matches in Noida and Pune. The opener will see the Telugu Titans face the Bengaluru Bulls, followed by U Mumba against Dabang Delhi K.C. Fans can watch the action live on the Star Sports Network and Disney+ Hotstar, as PKL continues to showcase the intensity and drama that have made it one of India’s most popular sports.
Through strategic sponsorships and partnerships, Disney Star emphasizes its commitment to providing top-tier sports entertainment for audiences nationwide.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
