Sports sponsors pour ₹15,000 cr in 2023, still cricket crazy
₹15,000 crore in 2023, up 10.95% from ₹14,209 crore a year ago, according to a report by GroupM ESP, the entertainment, esports and sports division of GroupM India. This expenditure includes ground, team, and franchise fees, athlete endorsements, and media spending. Notably, cricket dominated with ₹13,701 crore, growing 13% year-on-year, and accounting for 87% of the total spending.
The report titled, Sporting Nation—Building a Legacy, highlighted the significant growth in digital ad revenues, accounting for 40% of overall ad spending. This surge was fuelled by the availability of Indian Premier League (IPL) matches and ICC Men's Cricket World Cup matches for free on OTT platforms, in contrast to the previous season, when the matches were behind a paywall. The IPL's April 2023 decision to split the rights for the first time into digital and TV packages for the 2023-27 cycle, involving media giants Viacom18 and Star Sports, might have led to flat growth amid a slowdown in advertising spending.
However, the ICC Men's World Cup provided a year-end boost to spending. Overall, sports ad spending in 2023 remained steady, with less than 1% growth over 2022, despite the transition from TV to digital. In 2023, TV ad spends for IPL dipped 17%, but digital saw robust growth of over 25%.
In contrast, during the World Cup, both TV and digital advertising surged by over 40% compared to the 2022 ICC Men's T20 World Cup. Though this is not directly comparable due to the format difference — T20 in 2022 versus ODI in 2023 — it resulted in more airtime for the ODI series, said Vinit Karnik, head of entertainment, esports and sports, GroupM, South Asia. The IPL, a premier T20 cricket tournament, witnessed its valuation skyrocket to a $10.7
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