From Cola to Code: Inside BCCI's ₹130 Crore Home-Season Sponsor Lineup
Every home season, the BCCI lines up its commercial partners, and usually it is the same familiar mix — a cola, a bank, a phone brand. This time, one name on the list made everyone look twice: ChatGPT. Alongside Campa and SBI Life, OpenAI's chatbot is now an official Associate Partner for India's home cricket. Yes, the same AI people use for recipes and homework will be on the boards when India play at home.
The three new faces
The BCCI has named three Associate Partners for the home season: Campa (the cola brand), SBI Life (insurance), and ChatGPT (the AI platform from OpenAI). It is a telling spread — a drink, a financial product, and a piece of software that did not really exist in most people's daily lives a few years ago. Beverages, insurance and artificial intelligence, all sharing the same boundary rope.
The numbers behind the deal
Together, the three partnerships are worth more than ₹130 crore — a hefty 44% jump over the previous cycle. The agreement covers 35 matches and runs through March 2028, kicking off with India's home series against the West Indies.
The bidding itself tells a story. Campa came out on top at ₹1.31 crore per match, edging past Bisleri and Indian Oil, who both bid ₹1.2 crore. ChatGPT and SBI Life took the other two slots at ₹1.2 crore per match each. When three very different kinds of companies are willing to pay that much to sit next to Indian cricket, it says plenty about how valuable the home season has become.
Why ChatGPT is the talking point
Campa and SBI Life on a cricket board? Normal. An AI chatbot? That is new, and it is exactly why this deal is getting so much attention. It is not entirely out of nowhere — ChatGPT first dipped its toe into cricket back in November 2025 with a Women's Premier League tie-up alongside Kingfisher. But stepping up to a full BCCI home-season association is a much bigger stage.
Read between the lines and it signals something broader: AI has gone properly mainstream. When an AI brand is spending crores to sit beside colas and banks in cricket advertising, it has clearly moved from a tech-world novelty to a household name. Cricket, as usual, is the mirror that shows you what India is paying attention to.
What the BCCI is saying
The board is understandably pleased. BCCI President Mithun Manhas put it simply: "India's home season continues to be a valuable and sought-after sporting property." Honorary Secretary Devajit Saikia pointed to that 44% rise as proof of "the strong demand for association with Indian cricket."
In plain terms — brands are queuing up, and they are paying more than ever to be part of it.
What it means for fans
For the average fan, an "associate partner" mostly comes down to logos — on the boundary boards, the presentation stage, and across the broadcast. You will see these three names all through the home season. But the bigger takeaway is what the deal confirms: India's home summer is a genuinely huge event, big enough that a cola, an insurer and an AI company all want a slice of it.
And there is plenty of cricket coming to justify the spend. The season opens with the West Indies tour and rolls on from there. If you like to keep up with every fixture, live score and squad update in one place rather than ten browser tabs, it helps to have a Cricket ID or Online Cricket ID handy — a small thing that makes a busy season much easier to follow.
The bottom line
Colas and banks sponsoring cricket is an old story. An AI chatbot doing it is a brand new one, and it may well be the moment people look back on as the point AI truly became part of the everyday cricket conversation. Either way, India's home season just got a little more interesting off the field — and the cricket itself has not even started yet.
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