MAM
Maruti Suzuki ARENA Devils Circuit returns with A 10 city rollout
Mumbai: The 12th Season of India’s biggest Obstacle race – The Maruti Suzuki ARENA Devils Circuit – is announced with a pan India rollout across 10 cities, with Ahmedabad and Indore added to the lineup. Since its inception almost a decade ago, The Maruti Suzuki ARENA Devils Circuit Races have attracted athletes and thrill-seekers alike. Proclaimed to be the Toughest Race in Asia, the winners of the Maruti Suzuki ARENA Devils Circuit competitive category have been army personnel, fitness trainers, and professionals with an affinity to personal fitness.
The current season, just launched, aims to attract 60,000+ devilslayers to the course where they will be met with a 5 km long course peppered with 15 military style obstacles.
Known for offering the biggest prize in amateur sports, the competitive category of participation sees enthusiasts run across every city of the season to try and get a podium finish which gives them points. The male and female athlete at the end of the season wins themselves a brand new Maruti Suzuki Swift Car. The competition every year has been fierce and the participants who emerge victorious showcase the best athletic prowess seen in any amateur competition.
Speaking at the launch of the season, Adnan Adeeb, Founder of the property, said: “I am very emotional as we launch the 12th Season, and I wish to dedicate this season of the Devils Circuit races to the never die spirit of this amazing growing tribe of Devilslayers who are all now determined than ever before to raise the bar of their personal fitness goals and compete to win because to them and us, life is no longer a spectator sport.”
In the last 10+ years, it has been an absolute privilege to have hosted participants from over 800 cities, and 30 countries. And now as we look ahead, I am grateful and feel truly blessed to have received the support from partners, participants and the incredible tribe of devilslayers. My biggest thanks to Maruti Suzuki for their continued belief in Devils Circuit, together we will make this property soar to higher skies,” he added.
Commenting on this occasion, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd senior executive officer Partho Banerjee said, “Our association with the Devils Circuit has been a long standing one. As it continues to strengthen, we enter this year’s 12th season of Devils Circuit with renewed zeal and gusto, showcasing the Epic New Swift. We hope to satiate the thrill seekers, rightly called the ‘Devilslayers’, yet again with their enormous appetite for adventure. The Maruti Suzuki Swift, with its agility and performance, embodies the contestants’ tenacity and high energy to overcome challenging obstacles. We believe that this collaboration underscores our shared value of striving for excellence.”
Apart from Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Red Bull, Bisleri, Page Industries (Jockey), Adani Realty, Raheja Developers, & Omaxe are brands that have come on board to collaborate with the property.
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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.
