MAM
PUMA announces Sunil Chhetri as brand ambassador
MUMBAI: Global sports brand PUMA has announced Sunil Chhetri, captain of the Indian National Football team and Bengaluru FC signed with the brand. A captain, leader and a legend, he is the second-highest after Cristiano Ronaldo on the list of active international scorers in world football. Signing a three-year deal with PUMA, he now joins the brand’s roster of global players like Antoine Griezmann, Romelu Lukaku, Luis Suárez and Sergio Aguero among others.
One of the greatest footballers India has ever seen, Sunil Chhetri plays as a striker for the national team and Bengaluru FC. A hero for both the club and the country, he is the most-capped player and also the all-time top goal scorer for the Indian team. Named AIFF Player of the Year six times, he was also conferred with the Arjuna award in 2011 and Padma Shri in 2019 among several other coveted sports honors.
“I am excited to join the PUMA family. Over the years, I have closely witnessed and experienced the brand’s football heritage. Now signing with them as a PUMA player is a very natural progression for me,” said Sunil Chhetri. “We share a common goal to accelerate the growth of football in the country. I appreciate their commitment to the sporting ecosystem and look forward to creating a new chapter for Indian football,” he added.
This partnership extends PUMA’s legacy with Indian football. From its longstanding association with Bengaluru Football Club since 2014 to individual agreements with players like Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Dheeraj Singh Moirangthe, Nishu Kumar and Rahul Bheke, the brand aims to further its commitment to the sport and talent.
PUMA India managing director Abhishek Ganguly said, “Sunil Chhetri is synonymous with football. A living legend and an inspiration for the youth, he has made a huge impact to grow the sport and its following in India. His passion is very much in line with PUMA’s vision. Together, we are invested in growing the culture of football, inspiring and achieving new levels in the game.”
PUMA has teamed up with the country’s best athletes to support their never-ending effort to become faster, stronger, and better every single day. From Indian Cricket Captain, Virat Kohli and boxing champion MC Mary Kom to ace sprinter Dutee Chand, the brand is fueling the growing passion for sports across disciplines.
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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.
