MUMBAI: With the cricket World Cup scheduled to kick off next week, Sony Entertainment's Max has got a raft of sponsors on board.

Information available with Indiantelevision.com indicates that Max is expecting to make around Rs 2.6 billion from cricket's headline event, market sources point out.
As presenting sponsors Max has roped in Pepsi and Nokia. The associate sponsors include Maruti Udyog, ITC Foods, Videocon, Hero Honda, LG and Aditya Birla Group. Set India executive VP Rohit Gupta says that ITC Foods is a new entrant.

There are also a raft of sponsors for Max's wrap around programming Extraaa Innings. They are Hyundai, Mayur Suitings, Luminous, Bidlite, Visa, Indiagames, Maxwell and Kentaro.

The feeling in some quarters is that the timings will to some extent be more beneficial to male oriented brands. Men are more likely than women to burn the midnight oil to watch the outcome. Media experts point out that for the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, when matches started in the afternoon there was decent sampling even at the start of the matches. Now what kind of viewing there will be post midnight is of course not known, apart from the India matches where it will be strong.

Max has also done special packages. For instance, Fall of Wickets has Hyundai as sponsor, for Super Fours it is Monster.com, Super Sixes by Madhura Garments. For scrollers Max has tied up with LIC, Western Union, Jaguar, Kotak, Naukri.com and Bharatmatrimony. Gupta adds that there will not be more than 60-70 scrollers in a match.

The aim is to ensure brand integration without impacting viewer experience. In a match, Max will have 4800-5200 seconds of advertising, Gupta says. Anymore than that and one runs the danger of ball cutting.

Max was also to have done an initiative Host Ka Dost Hunt where the winner would have been a part of Max's Extraaa Innings team. That however has not happened. Max business head Sneha Rajani points out that nobody suitable was found.