Sports Marketing in India

Remember Jerry McGuire? “I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game *featuring you*, while singing your own song in a new commercial, *starring you*, broadcast during the Superbowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not *sleep* until that happens……….”

Sports management in India is a highly-fragmented, under-exploited area with various players trying to bite more than they can chew in one mouthful. Not that they ain’t making money, but the approach of the Globosports and IMGs and Showdiffs of the world surely are questionable. Lot of people believe that its a vicious cycle – barring cricket, sports in general do not have the required infrastructure; they fail to ignite the passions of the billions; India is not a sports marketing market in the purist sense as compared to say the US; we are 20 years behind in training and facilities…. the list is endless! Most companies which started out as sports management entities have ventured into celebrity management from Bollywood, event management and other ways of providing entertainment mostly in corporate parties. 

A close look at the way this industry operates shows that you can make more money by marketing sports rather than implementing it. But that’s not the full story – So how can a pure-bred sports agency develop in India? In principle, it shouldn’t be too different from a brand agency – helping sports nurture and grow relevant brands, grow the sports themselves and helping the brand sportsmen grow. 

Total Sports Asian kicked off this “para” foorball contest in Bengal, sold the idea to Tara Bangla and Ten Sports, where football is played in a smaller ground or yard in fast and pacy manner, and the top teams can rub their shoulder with big teams like East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. Football is very popular in at least 3 states – West Bengal, Kerala and Goa : this kind of an idea has the potential to bring in big brands too. Sell this idea to different brands including sports attires, shoes, health drinks and you have a marketplace right from test marketing to consumer insight generation to product launch. The same idea can be extended to other localised sports initiatives like children’s marathons, badminton etc.

These can be televised by a host of regional TV channels and even children’s and youth channels. Besides viewership and ensuing ad revenues, not only do such initiatives raise awareness of the masses, but also instils enthusiasm and sense of bonding. Today, alas, it only happens in IPL!!! 

The other upcoming area is adventure sports. Today whoever owns a raft in Rishikesh makes some money and the industry has close to 1000 unorganized players in North India alone, if not more. Some companies like iDiscoveri or Exper are utilising this platform as an experiential educational and mentoring programme for children and corporates. These can all be packaged properly and marketed to brands for good sponsorship options. 

Sponsors need a space which they can own. If you can justify space in kabbadi or squash then they will invest in it. They key is to build up the sport. The key, as often stated vaguely, is finding and justifying the value in such partnerships. For instance, getting a tech service provider to develop and market a permission-based voice messaging system to increase ticket sales to a Ranji game.

The other area is integration of media like computers, mobiles, Dish TV’s and Internet. Hence sources of revenues for a sports marketing agency would involve, apart from representing the Yuvraj’s and Bhaichung Bhutia’s, rights to TV programming, working as a brand agency catering to developing products or services through sports, sponsorships, sports consulting, sports auctions and also sports research. Sports Research can vary from sponsorship evaluations, rights value valuations, product testing, economic impact studies, retail and consumer behaviour and attitude surveys, market industry reports, return on investment modelling and much more.

In the US, sports marketing is a $250bn industry. In India, if we leave out Sachin, Dhoni and Sania Mirza, its an abysmal figure. And it requires a collective action. And an ambitious Jerry McGuire to start the revolution. Then, only then, the medals tally at the Olympics can show 30 instead of 3.