Cricket presses its field advantage, scores big in Rs 15.7K cr sports biz

The sports business in India stood at a whopping Rs 15,766 crore in 2023. Cricket’s share of this is 87 per cent, up from 85 per cent in 2022. Other sports such as football, hockey, and badminton account for the remaining 13 per cent.

Of the total money spent on sports, sponsorship (inclusive of ground, team, and franchise fees) and media spends by brands brought in the biggest chunks.

Endorsements by athletes are a distant third.

 

The Indian Premier League or IPL, a cricketing event, remains the largest in revenue, reach, and popularity.

The rise in the popularity of the Pro-Kabaddi League (PKL) and the steadiness of the football-centric Indian Super League (ISL) are heartening.

The big surprise — the love and attention that the Women’s Premier (cricket) League or WPL is getting from audiences and sponsors.

These, among other insights, are what Sporting Nation — Building a Legacy, GroupM’s annual look at the sports business, offers.

GroupM is one of the largest media agencies in India. It is part of the £15 billion WPP, which, along with Publicis, Interpublic, et al., is among the top five marketing services groups in the world. The report, now in its eleventh year, shows that sports, led largely by cricket, has delivered a compound annual growth rate of 11 per cent.

 

“In 2008, when we started work on this report, the sports business stood at Rs 2,400 crore,” says Vinit Karnik, head of sports, eSports, and entertainment, GroupM, South Asia.

Of the non-cricketing celebrities, javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra and wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia, and tennis star Sania Mirza topped the social media buzz, according to the report.