MUMBAI: Into its 10th year, FICCI Frames organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry was inaugurated by Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Anand Sharma, while the FICCI Frames’ core team – Yashraj Film’s Yash Chopra (Chairman), Multi Screen Media’s Kunal Dasgupta (Co-Chairman), Reliance Entertainment’s Amit Khanna, and Dr Amit Mitra (Secy-General, FICCI), amongst other members payed witness to the release of the annual media report prepared by KPMG. The event promises to focus on strengthening the media industry, particularly in the current market scenario.
According to the annual M&E industry report prepared by KPMG, sports advertising grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32 per cent from 2005 to 2007. Consequently, the size of the sports genre in terms of AD revenue stood around INR 7 billion in FY2008 as against to INR 5 billion in FY2005. As a result of the growth in ad revenues from sports, the scramble for sports broadcasting rights has also been getting frantic. It may be recollected, three years ago media and sports marketing company Nimbus committed to pay $ 612 million for the rights to India’s international matches and domestic cricket until 2010. ESPN Star broadcasts events staged by cricket’s global governing body ICC, including World Cups; it paid more than $ 1.1 billion for global rights between 2007 and 2014.
The symbiotic relationship between media and sports has proved durable because of the mutual benefits to both. The report states that sports marketing, which includes both marketing of sports events and teams as well as using sports to market non-sports products, is today a business worth Rs 20 billion in India out of which cricket alone accounts for Rs 18 billion. Also, very importantly, it is growing at a rapid pace of 20 per cent a year compared to the global average growth of 5 per cent a year. While developed countries have a mature marketing industry, in India the industry has just started to take off.
Cricket still dominates sports in India
In India, sports and cricket are almost synonymous. The KPMG report records that among the three mega sport events in recent years in India, TV viewing of Cricket World Cup 2007 was highest with 113 million viewers followed by Olympics 2004 at 65 million while Fifa Football World Cup 2006 had 39 million viewers. This was in spite of the fact that India crashed out early in the Cricket World Cup. On the whole, cricket garnered about 65 per cent of the total sports viewership pie in 2007.
Its no surprise therefore that one of the most popular Indian sports events in recent times that caused ripples in the entire Indian media industry and brought sports as a mass entertainment genre into the limelight was the Indian Premier League – a 44-day extravaganza that was based on the Twenty20 format that has truly caught the imagination of the cricket lovers both in India and outside.
Taking a cue from the success of the English Premier League (EPL) brand, the BCCI too hired global sports management firm IMG to study the professional sports league in the US and Europe and model its IPL business.
Other sports not far behind
Even though cricket is still the mainstream in Indian sports, India is gradually moving from a one sport market to a multi-sport market with support from the government as well as corporates. The report has stated that the growth in viewership of other sports has been driven by two factors; firstly, launch of several new sports channels in India, acquiring and marketing properties across other sports, internationally. Secondly, Indian sportsmen doing well internationally in sports other than cricket.
As a result, other sports like Formula 1, Tennis, Soccer and Golf are catching up in popularity and gaining viewership in the country.
Highlights
Viewership of Formula One in India in the year 2005 was just 24 million. However this had grown to 60 million in 2007.
Viewership of Tennis Grand Slams in India was 35 million in 2006 while it has gone up to 42.4 million in 2007.
Viewership of Fifa World Cup in India was 2.4 million in 2002 while this increased to 4.4 million in 2006.
Apart from these Golf, Boxing and Hockey are the other sports which are expected to grow in viewership driven by the good performance of Indian sportsmen on the international scene in recent times. Besides, the Commonwealth Games, which is scheduled to be held in India in 2010, is further expected to boost the marketing opportunity for sports in the country. The games are expected to be revenue neutral, so the cost of organising might have to be offset by ticket sales, advertising revenue and broadcasting rights.
