MAM
Rise Worldwide to rep Manchester City in India
MUMBAI: Reliance Industries-owned sports management firm Rise Worldwide has secured a stellar signing with Manchester City, forming a formidable partnership that promises to boost the brilliant Blues’ brand in the burgeoning Indian market.
The dazzling deal designates Rise Worldwide as City’s commercial crusaders in India, tasked with tracking down tailor-made tie-ups for the Premiership powerhouse. This partnership presents a perfect platform for Indian brands to capitalise on connecting with the club’s growing galaxy of fans across the subcontinent.
Rise Worldwide, which has firmly footed itself as India’s matchday maestros in sports management, will leverage its local leverage and marketing muscle to help Manchester City score spectacular sponsorships across India’s commercial landscape.
Manchester City, whose trophy cabinet continues to creak under considerable silverware success, has signalled its serious stance on the Indian market through this calculated collaboration.
“Manchester City is one of the biggest clubs in the world, and we are honoured with the opportunity to engage and enable partnerships for them in India,” said Rise Worldwide head Nikhil Bardia. “We aim to identify and engage in long-term partnerships that will drive business growth and contribute to the development of football.”
This pitch-perfect partnership promises to propel both parties forward, with Manchester City gaining greater ground in one of football’s fastest flourishing frontiers, while Rise reinforces its reputation as the premier player in India’s sports business sector.
Football fanatics across the nation will be watching with wonder as this commercial courtship kicks off what could be a long and lucrative liaison between Indian brands and the Etihad outfit.
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.
