MUMBAI: Within a month of winning the media rights of the Indian Premier League ( IPL ) for Rs 16,437.5 crore, Star India has laid off some employees in distribution and some other functions.According to multiple sources in the company, the distribution team faced the first blow with over 60 employees handed out pink slips. Along with other functions, the total exits at Star India in this month is close to 100, including a few top level executives of Star Sports’ ad sales and revenue strategy teams.“Distribution team has been pruned and laid off staff have received an average of 12-month severance package. This includes Mumbai-based as well as staff from other satellite offices. Senior employees from IT and a few other functions have also been handed pink slips while some senior ad sales executives from Star Sports have put in their papers,” confirmed a source at Star, adding that there’s tremendous pressure to increase revenues, which has led to this situation.However, Sanjay Gupta , managing director at Star India, told ET that the company is relooking at the business and recalibrating distribution. He said that reorganisation led to some redundancies, but refused to give the total number of people who have been asked to go. “Over the years, the distribution business has changed and in the new scheme of things, we need fewer people,” Gupta said. “We are very mindful of helping them in the best possible way.”But when asked about exits from Star Sports, he said that there’s no attrition there. “We are reasonably happy with the sports business. There’s no truth in senior level exits in Star Sports. Having said that, in an organisation of over 4,500 people, every year there will be 10-12% attrition, which is not a big number. We are adding people in Hotstar, data science and consumer insights. We must have added 100 people in the technology team,” said Gupta. “It’s part of an evolution of a company,”It is learnt that the pressure on increasing advertising revenues from sports is mounting as big properties -- Olympics 2016, Kabaddi World Cup and ICC Women’s World Cup -- remained under-monetised.Also, according to sources, the company missed the targets for both – India-Australia cricket series as well as Pro Kabaddi -- by a margin. The company revised the rates of ongoing India Australia cricket series to Rs 10 lakh per 10 seconds, and expected to garner close to Rs 330-340 crore, but ad sales are falling short.For the ongoing Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), the target this year is Rs 154 crore, said the source.“Cricket series has done less than Rs 230 crore, while there’s a gap of close to Rs 50 crore in kabaddi ad sales. Even the current order book for Indian Super League (ISL) is not looking good, where the target is Rs 200 crore,” another source said.When asked for comments, Gupta said that impact properties in sports have grown, while the monetisation has remained stagnant. “We are creating a new market. This is impactful content and we are just asking for the right price. Of course, there are challenges, and overnight we will not get the 100% rates, but we are reasonably happy from the sales standpoint,” Gupta said.A senior executive from a media agency, however, said on the condition of anonymity that Star Sports has a high dependence on specific categories and corporate/brands for repeat business. “So, when suddenly advertisers were asked to shell out three times rates, it was met with cold resistance.” He said that for Star, ad sales has remained “unplanned adventurism” and the selling process is seen as a contest with buyer as an adversary and the sale order as the prize.With the challenge of monetising IPL in the next five year, industry experts believe it will demand a much sharper and market-sensitive sales strategy.