The calculus of sport: How BKT built a global brand off the beaten path
An Indian industrial brand has rewritten the rules of sports marketing, backing small-town leagues and rural audiences from Italy to Australia, turning proximity into strategy.
Late March in Saskatchewan, Canada, the weather swung between snow and sun. In Moose Jaw, a prairie town of 33,000 better known for its grain elevators than global sport, 13 national teams gathered for the World Men’s Curling Championship. Awaiting them was an unlikely patron: an Indian tyre company.
BKT Tires had signed on as title sponsor, organised fan activations at the Temple Gardens Centre, and brought along Canadian curling legend Pat Simmons for meet-and-greets. The Mumbai-headquartered tyremaker was betting on a sport most Indians could not describe.
Six months later, when the Board of Control for Cricket in India opened bidding to replace Dream11 as the Indian cricket teams' jersey sponsor, BKT was conspicuous by its absence. Fellow tyre manufacturer Apollo Tyres waltzed away with the prize at Rs 579 crore (about $66 million). This was not an oversight.
BKT has spent the past decade reimagining how an industrial brand can use sport. Instead of chasing prestige properties like Formula 1 or the Champions League, it has focused on regional leagues and rural communities. What began as an experiment in Italy’s Serie B has evolved into a marketing model built around smaller leagues and regional sports.
