MAM
Nadal joins poker site Pokerstars as brand ambassador
MUMBAI: Just ahead of the start of Wimbledon multiple Grand Slam tennis champion, Rafael Nadal has joined online poker site PokerStars, lending his support to the site and inviting sports fans to join him in playing the popular game of poker.
Nadal is keen to learn the game of poker. Through mentorship with PokerStars pros and playing online, Rafa will draw on many of the skills he uses to such great effect on the tennis court to improve his game one step at a time.
Nadal said, “It‘s no secret that I love to compete and try my very best in everything, whether that‘s tennis, golf or video games. When I discovered the game of poker, I chose to join PokerStars because they understand what it takes to be the best and associate themselves with the qualities of champions. I‘m very happy to be working with them.”
Nadal will play poker in spare moments this summer while he concentrates on tennis. Later in the year, he will be able to devote more time to poker and be representing PokerStars in online tournaments, in advertising campaigns and at charity events. Details of these will be announced in the coming months.
PokerStars chairman of the board Mark Scheinberg said, “Rafa Nadal represents all that is great about competition – the mix of talent, intellect, dedication and mental strength that you find in champions in every sport. We are proud to have Rafa as an ambassador for the brand and excited at the opportunity to help him enjoy and improve his game.”
Nadal joins athletes who have chosen poker as their “other game” and who play with PokerStars, including other Olympic medallists.
Nadal will play a key role in introducing new players to the game of poker, particularly in Spain where online poker is surging in popularity following the recent awarding of government licenses to operate online poker.
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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.
