The Indian sports industry for the first time crossed the Rs 14,000-crore mark in spending in 2022, according to the 10th edition of GroupM ESP’s Sporting Nation Report.
The spending includes sports sponsorship, media spends and endorsements. Among these, sports sponsorship, which covers spends on-ground, team and franchises, recorded a massive increase of 105% from 2021 to reach Rs 5,907 crore.
Cricket continues to remain the dominant sport in the country, taking up 85% of the spends, while other emerging sports like football, kabaddi and marathons also saw an upsurge in spending to account for the remaining 15%.
The report also lists the various factors that drove spending in Indian sports such as the addition of two Indian Premier League (IPL) teams, the ICC T20 cricket World Cup, an increase in the number of IPL fixtures, a higher number of Indian cricket team fixtures (67 in 2022 was higher than the annual average of 55), the FIFA World Cup and the return of other professional sporting leagues like Indian Super League (football) and Pro Kabaddi League. With a 14% CAGR, the sports industry has been one of the better performing sectors in the economy, the report observes.
Media spending, which grew at 9%, accounts for 53% of the total sports industry spending at Rs 7,553 crore.
The sports celebrity endorsement market in India has seen a 20% increase with a total value of Rs 729 crore. Out of the 505 brand endorsement deals, 85% of the total brand endorsement value has come from cricketers such as Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar.
Cricketers’ endorsements have grown by 18%, with Kohli, Dhoni and Sharma endorsing over 30 brands each. Neeraj Chopra and PV Sindhu lead in endorsement deals among the non-cricketing sports personalities.
Even though cricket continues to win on the playing field, Vinit Karnik, head–sports, esports and entertainment, GroupM South Asia, asserts that other sports such as football, kabaddi, golf and marathons are showing remarkable growth.
“The share of emerging sports like these has increased from 12% in 2021 to reach 15% last year. Even for a sport like golf, which is niche, we are seeing brands like Mastercard, Mercedes and HSBC continuing to associate and spend on it,” he says. He notes that in terms of spends, football is a distant second from cricket and is followed by kabaddi in the third place.
The IPL accounted for an estimated 40% of the total cricket spending last year, adds Karnik. He also states that the women’s premier league (WPL) is another big plus for the sport, and for women’s cricket in particular. The property is expected to add another Rs 1,200 crore to cricket spends in 2023. On the current IPL, he declined to share any kind of projections, observing that these can only be made about three weeks into the season. With TV and digital rights held by two different players, he believes this will be a season of ‘wait and watch’.