Indiantelevision.com Team

(10 June 2011 4:50 pm)

MUMBAI: World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) announced today that Dream Theatre has been appointed as a licensing agent in India for WWE.

Dream Theatre has secured licensees to launch WWE products across apparel, bags, stationery, gifts and novelties lines. The team will also focus on consumer promotions to make WWE products more accessible to its fan base in India.

WWE products will be available in standalone as well as retail chain stores across the country including Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop, Hamleys, Pantaloons, Central, Crossword, More, Hypercity, Lilliput and others.

Dream Theatre founder and CEO Jiggy George said that products will hit shelves next February-March.

The deal is for two years and is on a revenue sharing basis. "We are delighted to partner with WWE and reach out to its superb fan base in India. WWE is immensely popular with fans of all ages and this partnership greatly fortifies Dream Theatre's portfolio. WWE is the second most popular sport after India cricket. Our market for products will be the Metros as well as the class A,B towns. We are targeting the kids and teens. The North in terms of Punjab and Chandigarh should do particularly well for us"

WWE International executive VP Andrew Whitaker said, "The tremendous demand for official WWE product from our huge Indian fan base has been driven by having such highly rated television programming on Ten Sports over the last decade. A partnership with a well established and highly regarded agent like Dream Theatre is a major step towards meeting that demand."

George adds that while piracy is a threat for any product that is popular it is a function of lack of products in the marketplace and not having the right price points. "WWE is very popular and so it is important that products are available. As organised retail grows, piracy will come down. We are seeing this already. We expect that WWE products like T-shirts and back to school items will work well."

With nine hours of WWE programming broadcast each week on Ten Sports, WWE Superstars, Divas and Hall Of Famers can be seen on more than 68 million homes across the country.