GROWTH OF SPORTS MARKETING IN INDIA

Sports marketing is a branch of the marketing industry that involves the promotion of and the arrangement of sponsorship deals for sporting events, venues, teams and individual athletes. Those who work in the field are often employed by a specialty agency, a sports franchise, or by the marketing division of a corporation that promotes its products through athletics sponsorships.
                                   India's first brush with sports marketing was perhaps when Mascarenhas and WorldTel signed Sachin Tendulkar for a whooping $1billion in 1996. First time India experienced sports marketing of this magnitude.
                                        The sports marketing activities were restricted to organizing events, selling sponsorship and ads. IPL(INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE) was perhaps the first of its kind to provide a proper platform to market sports. Sports marketing has seeped into activities other than ads or events.
                                     Slow growth of sports marketing in India in the early period can be attributed to dearth of expert players in the field. In the nascent stage, advertising agencies used to handle the sports marketing responsibilities.
                                                They were responsible for creating brand identities for sports teams in India without prior experience. With the arrival of international sports consultancies and birth of our own India ones, this $4-5billion industry is pegged to glow multi fold in next few years.