With just a month away for the commencement of the current season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and the BCCI has been giving a final touch for what could be a far but a grant cricketing event and the race of bidding the title sponsor was on for the current season to fill the space left vacant by the Chinese smartphone maker Vivo. 

In the tightly fought race, IPL Chairman Brijesh Patel said on Tuesday that the nation's leading fantasy gaming company Dream 11 has won the race and it will be the main title sponsor of the IPL 2020 edition and the gaming company had made a deal by paying the league 50% less than of what Vivo paid to one of the wealthiest cricketing leagues. 

According to Reuters, Brijesh Patel said that Dream 11 had disclosed a winning bid of 2.22 billion rupees ($29 million) - Rs 234 crore this year, compared with the 4.4 billion that had been paid by Vivo annually to the BCCI. The deal has been dubbed as an ad-hoc replacement after the nation witnessed a collective call across the borders to ban the Chinese apps and firms from India following a border skirmish between the Chinese and Indian soldiers that killed 20 Indian soldiers in June. Vivo had signed a five year deal with the BCCI in 2018 and secured the title sponsorship for IPL for Rs 2,199 crore which if put across in the yearly average would come around Rs 440 crore annually. 

Following the nationwide call, the Indian government had banned the Chinese apps including Tiktok, Shareit, and UC Browser. As the Chinese mobile maker Vivo, which secured the IPL title sponsor for 2018-2022 for nearly 22 billion rupees, had vacated its spot recently, the BCCI had invited the bidding for the title sponsor to be a replacement for Vivo. 

Some of the significant Indian companies like Jio, Byju's, Dream 11, Tata Group, Unacademy, and Patanjali Ayurved had contested in the race of replacing Vivo at the high time when the IPL had scheduled to kick start in the United Arab Emirates. Dream 11 has secured a deal with 2.22 billion against 4.4 billion made by Vivo, which means that the BCCI is going to get settled up for the deal 50% less than what it got from the predecessor of Dream 11.

The gaming company Dream 11, which secured significant grounds in India last year by becoming India's first gaming startup, is estimated worth of over $1 billion and it has faced legal challenges in the past due to its gaming platform resembling gambling, which is illegal in the country. According to the reports, the decline in the title sponsor was the sequel to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Though the IPL chairman said that Dream 11 will be the title sponsor, the reports say that the BCCI is unwilling to get settled for the current offer and BCCI's confirmation would depend upon how high Dream 11 increase the bid for the next two editions of the IPL as the duration of the Dream 11 sponsorship is until December 31. According to the reports, this has been one of the reasons why the BCCI is yet to officially announce Dream 11 as the IPL title sponsors. 

Dream 11 and the BCCI have been negotiating on the conditional three-year bid and the company needs to pay Rs 240 crore each in 2021 and 2022 and the Indian cricket board wants the gaming company to increase the amounts by citing that the current deal is fine for the current year's season. The IPL 2020 will be running from September 19 to November 8 in the United Arab Emirates.