MUMBAI: Hotstar, Star India's online streaming platform, has withdrawn as an associate sponsor of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

A BCCI source told India Today that there was an exit clause in the deal and Hotstar chose to exercise it.  The deal was worth Rs 42 crores per year and IPL associate sponsorships are reported to be in the range of 40-80 crore rupees.

The report further said that the move will however have no bearing on Hotstar's digital streaming rights. Although the media rights deal was seen as being an ambitious one, this year after the end of the IPL, Hotstar claimed to have crossed 300 million viewers and to have registered a 74 per cent increase in watch-time compared with last year's IPL.

Star India had bagged a five year IPL media rights deal for television and digital in 2017 worth 16347.5 crores.