MAM
Indian speedsters Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Chetan Sakariya partner with Rario to launch their cricket NFTs
Mumbai: Indian speedsters Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, and Chetan Sakariya have partnered with Rario, which claims to be the world’s first officially licenced cricket digital collectibles platform. The exclusive partnership with the platform will help launch their own non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The pacers join Rishabh Pant, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rashid Khan, Jason Holder, Quinton De Kock, and many others as player partners on the platform.
Singh said, “This is a great marriage between sports and technology, and a wonderful opportunity for me to be closer to my fans, who continue to give me so much love and support. I look forward to sharing some of my most cherished possessions and connecting with my fans in the biggest community of cricket fans, Rario.”
“With this brand-new partnership for my NFTs with Rario, I am thrilled at the opportunity to engage with the fans at a much deeper level. Cutting edge technology, combined with the fervour for one of the most loved sports in the world, will surely add to the experience of the cricket fans,” Krishna said.
Sakariya said, “I am thrilled at the opportunity to engage with the fans at a much deeper level. I am looking forward to sharing some of my most cherished possessions and connecting with my fans in the biggest community of cricket fans, Rario.”
Rario co-founder, CEO Ankit Wadhwa said, “I am excited to have Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, and Chetan Sakariya on board. In just the last year and a half, they have become the most talked about bowlers. They have consistently delivered consistent performances for me. From a strategy gaming point of view, anyone with an eye for talent will know that Prasidh, Arshdeep, and Chetan’s Player Cards will be highly sought-after in Rario’s utility ecosystem.”
Fairplay Sports co-founder Bandana Chhetri, who manages Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, and Chetan Sakariya said, “We are excited about Prasidh, Arshdeep, and Chetan’s partnerships with Rario. Rario is the best when it comes to licenced cricket digital collectibles platforms, and we are proud that we could get the partnership done.”
Rario marketing head Shubham Agarwal said, “We are excited to have Arshdeep, Chetan, and Prasidh onboard. They are rising young bowlers who have proved their mettle at a young age and with their skills would bring great value to Rario’s NFT utilities.”
AD Agencies
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.
