MUMBAI: ASN (formerly Asia Sponsorship News) has entered into a strategic business partnership with SportzPower for the South Asian market, which includes Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India.

ASN is an independent intelligence service for non-traditional media that has been tracking and analysing over 10,000 ‘sponsorship’ deals for almost a decade over a varied fields including sports, branded content, native advertising, movie partnerships and celebrity endorsements.

Shedding light upon what this alliance means for India, ASN founder and CEO Ben Heyhoe Flint says, “Our data shows India as the second biggest market for sponsorship and branded content in Asia, next to China, so our partnership with Sportz Network Pvt Ltd is pivotal in enabling us to get under the skin of this enormous marketplace. With them, we look forward to unlocking even more insights into this seemingly complex trading environment.”

This is backed by the fact that ASN’s India Index, ASN’s tracker of all non-traditional investment in India alone reached $740 million in 2014, representing a 9.2 per cent YoY gain and a 15 per cent share of the entire ASN Index.

Sportz Network co-founder Thomas Abraham stresses upon India’s fast growing sponsorship market and ASN’s potential in the local markets where brands need the right information and analysis to buy, sell or plan their sponsorship activity.