Vipul Bandekar Joins Zee Entertainment As Director Of Marketing For Z Sports
Vipul Bandekar has joined Zee Entertainment as director of marketing for Z Sports, based in Mumbai.
- Company: Zee Entertainment
- Role: Director of marketing, Z Sports
- Base: Mumbai
- Previously: Founder, Gravitas Media; AVP brand strategy, JioStar
What Vipul Bandekar Has Been Brought In To Build
A sports brand, and the audience for it. The brief covers marketing for Z Sports with a focus on strengthening the brand, growing audiences, and building connections between sporting properties, advertisers and fans. On announcing the move, Bandekar pointed to campaigns, fan experiences and opportunities for sports engagement.
Those three constituencies do not want the same thing, and a sports channel's marketing lives or dies on serving all of them at once: rights that need an audience, advertisers who need that audience proven, and fans who need a reason to care about a property they have not watched before.
The Record
More than a decade across Star India, Disney Star and JioStar. At JioStar the role was assistant vice president for brand strategy and integrated marketing, with a portfolio spanning the Indian Premier League, ICC tournaments, Pro Kabaddi League, Women's Premier League, Indian Super League and bilateral cricket.
The earlier years at Star Sports covered marketing, media and activations, including being part of the team that launched the Pro Kabaddi League and the Indian Super League, plus campaigns for cricket tournaments and regional sports channels.
Why The Launch Experience Is The Relevant Part
Because launching a league is the same problem as launching a sports brand: persuading people to watch something with no habit attached to it. Pro Kabaddi and the Indian Super League both had to manufacture an audience rather than inherit one, and that is nearer to the Z Sports task than running marketing for an established cricket property.
Between the network years and this appointment came an entrepreneurial stint. Bandekar founded Gravitas Media in January 2026, a brand and integrated marketing consultancy whose work covered positioning, go-to-market strategy, integrated campaigns and budget planning across categories including FMCG, entertainment, real estate and wellness.
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