Fantasy gaming platform Mobile Premier League’s subsidiary arm ‘MPL Sports Apparel and Accessories’ will be the new kit sponsor of the Indian cricket team for a period of three years.

MPL Sports replaces Nike, who has been sponsors with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) since 2006.

The fresh contract was signed on Monday and the deal is worth Rs 120 crore.

BCCI will also get a revenue share of 10 per cent of every jersey or merchandise sold by MPL.

A member of the apex council confirmed the development on Monday that BCCI has inked the apparel and merchandise deal with MPL, replacing Nike.

“Yes apex council has passed the sponsorship deal for apparel of Indian team (men, women, A and U-19). However, the rate per match will be Rs 65 lakh per game instead of Rs 88 lakh that Nike was giving,” the official said.

The Nike deal came with a separate minimum guarantee of approximately Rs 6 crore per year.

“MPL has formed an apparel manufacturing company. They will also pay an amount for merchandise contract. The deal will end in November 2023,” the source added.

It is understood that it was a “negotiated” deal and there was no bidding. The BCCI neither floated a tender nor called for an Expression of Interest.

Dream11 Sports, Puma and Proline were the other interested parties.

There has been talk that MPL as kit sponsor is in direct conflict with another BCCI official partner, Dream 11, who are also the title rights holder of IPL 2020.

It was learnt that Puma and Adidas didn’t fill the bid papers as they felt that the deal needed to be reduced to one-third from the original bid.

Nike had a five-year deal during which they paid Rs 370 crore from 2016 to 2020 with Rs 30 crore royalty.

“No sporting apparel major was ready to pay that kind of money that Nike paid in current economic climate (due to Covid-19). “One of the major reasons being merchandise items being very costly for common public,” the source said.