JSW Inspire and the business behind India’s other blue
Since 2022, JSW Inspire has dressed India at multi-sport Games, using the IOA’s apparel rights to build a sportswear business within an Olympic sponsorship market that had no organised commercial structure a decade ago.
When Shreyas Iyer leads India onto Nisshin’s Kōrogi Athletic Park for Monday’s Asian Games quarter-final, the blue shirt will carry no Adidas stripes. Across the chest will be JSW Inspire, with “India” spread wide beneath it.
Adidas’s five-year, Rs 250 crore contract, signed in May 2023, ends where multi-sport competition begins. It covers bilateral cricket and International Cricket Council tournaments. At the Asian Games, the BCCI agreement gives way to the Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) apparel programme. Its official sports and lifestyle kit partner is JSW Inspire, the activewear label of the $22+ billion JSW Group.
Three years ago in Hangzhou, Ruturaj Gaikwad led India to men’s gold in the same JSW blue. India’s women wore it again on Tuesday, beating Sri Lanka by 147 runs to retain their Asian Games title. India has brought much of its 2026 T20 World Cup-winning core for the men’s competition, alongside younger players such as Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
Asian Games participants remain bound by the Olympic Charter through the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) Constitution, while commercial markings on clothing are governed by the OCA’s own guidelines and each sport’s technical rules. India has consolidated its apparel under JSW Inspire across the contingent, including cricket and hockey.
A decade ago, private money played a much smaller role in Indian Olympic sponsorship. ONGC and Amul backed India at London 2012, when the IOA relied largely on public-sector companies and cooperatives. Sponsors were signed piecemeal; the association had no commercial arm to decide what it could sell, how the rights fit together or what each was worth.
That changed in 2016, when the IOA hired IOS Sports and Entertainment to find sponsors for the Indian contingent travelling to Rio. “The IOA did not have a commercial arm at the time, with no marketing or commercial structure whatsoever,” Neerav Tomar, IOS’s co-founder and managing director, told The State of Play. “We put together that structure and its deliverables, adapting the International Olympic Committee's commercial framework for a National Olympic Committee.”
For 2016, the IOA, working with IOS, signed Reliance Jio and Edelweiss as principal sponsors, with Amul, Tata Salt and Herbalife as associate partners. Li-Ning supplied the performance kit; Delhi fashion house Study by Janak handled the ceremonial clothing. Thirty brands have since signed IOA sponsorship agreements, Tomar said, and several have returned for more than one Games cycle.
By the year ended March 2025, IOA sponsorship income had reached just over Rs 33 crore. Reliance contributed Rs 7.8 crore and JSW Rs 5.3 crore. Adani, Aditya Birla Capital and nine other sponsors supplied the balance.
The IOA has relatively little of its own to sell. At the Olympic Games, it controls neither broadcast rights nor gate receipts, while merchandise is largely handled through commercial partners. Sponsorship remains its principal source of commercial income, sold through annual agreements or packages tied to a particular Games. Its only domestic multi-sport property is the National Games.
Paris 2024 added another asset. Reliance and the IOA opened India House, India’s first official Olympic hospitality house, bringing athletes, supporters, sponsors and cultural programming under one roof.
Sources involved in the sales said the price of the most recent Commonwealth Games and Asian Games cycle was roughly four times that of the previous cycle. Tomar described a similar rise after Tokyo. “Post-Tokyo, we've seen a significant surge in both brand interest and overall rights value, at least four to five times what it used to be,” he said.
JSW did not participate in this story. The State of Play sent questions to company executives but had received no response by the time of publication.
