Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
IPL just ended, and if there is one thing we know about Indian sports marketing, it is that brands have developed a rather predictable playbook: wait for an athlete to shine on the grand stage—be it the IPL, Olympics, or World Cup—then scramble to sign them up for eye-watering endorsement deals.
But according to Vinit Karnik, managing director of content, entertainment & sports at GroupM India, this approach might be missing the most compelling story of all: the grassroots journey that creates champions in the first place.
Grassroots and bottom-up approach
I would like brands to do more grassroots. I would like brands to adopt a more bottom-up approach to sport
Vinit Karnik, GroupM
“Today, we are only scratching the surface after a champion is made. But the champions are developed at the grassroots level,” Karnik observes.
He points to the recent example of young cricketing sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who delivered some remarkable performances in the recently concluded IPL season.
“The guy is a 14-year-old from Bihar. But if you look at him, he has played at a grassroots level in his school and has represented his state. That is where the champions are made.”
Karnik’s proposition isn’t merely about shifting budgets around; he’s advocating for a fundamental reimagining of how brands engage with sports talent- a comprehensive bottom-up approach that recognises potential long before it becomes obvious to everyone else.
“I would like brands to do more grassroots. I would like brands to adopt a more bottom-up approach to sport,” he emphasises. “Currently, brands are somewhere experimenting at the top, at the Team India, ISL (Indian Super League), or even PKL (Pro Kabaddi League) level. I think the grassroots movement needs to come up very, very strongly.”
To underscore his point, Karnik draws upon cricket’s established ecosystem as a template for understanding this pyramid approach.
“If you look at the cricket in the country, you have got various federations across states at the grassroots level. Then you have the Ranji Trophy, you have the Deodhar Trophy, you have the Irani Trophy.”
While brands may latch on to players who find the spotlight in premier tournaments of the sport, Karnik argues that lower-tier tournaments can be good indicators of potential stars in the making, and therefore more cost-effective for brands wanting to crack the sports marketing space. His philosophy is simple: “Catch them young, watch them grow. This is the mantra of going bottom-up.”
State of the Indian sports economy
10-15 years back, I would have said India is a sports-loving country; it’s a sports-watching country; it’s not a sports-playing country
Vinit Karnik, GroupM
Karnik’s insight comes at a particularly fascinating juncture for Indian sports marketing. The sector has experienced nothing short of a transformation, with the sports economy surging sevenfold since 2008 to approach the $2 billion mark, as per GroupM’s latest Sporting Nation report.
Interestingly, sports sponsorship has grown to Rs 16,633 crore with a healthy 6% year-on-year increase in 2024, whilst the overall sports market has grown 3.6 times in the past decade alone. With a sustained 13% compound annual growth rate over 17 years, the industry continues to showcase remarkable long-term resilience.
Moreover, the country is experiencing a fundamental transformation from being predominantly a sports-watching nation to increasingly becoming a sports-playing one, a generational change that Karnik has witnessed firsthand throughout his career.
“10-15 years back, I would have said India is a sports-loving country; it’s a sports-watching country; it’s not a sports-playing country,” he reflects. “But that needle is somewhere moving from a sports-watching country to a sports-playing country.”
This evolution hasn’t occurred in a vacuum. Several converging factors have created this sporting renaissance, which Karnik breaks down systematically.
“Because of the success of cricket, and to a large extent, the success of the whole economy being opened up, Indians have access to the best of the global sports content. This has built aspiration for not just watching these sports, but also wanting to play them.”
The infrastructure development has been equally crucial. “The Sports Authority of India has done significant work at a grassroots level in terms of building some level of infrastructure. I may not say we have the best infrastructure in the world, but we definitely have a decent amount of infrastructure for people to sample sports.”
Government initiatives have provided the competitive framework necessary for this transformation.
“The Government of India has created this whole programme called TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme), which is the Olympic podium programme. Plus, they have created Khelo India initiative, the only competitive structure that we have for our school kids and college kids to play sports,” Karnik points out.
Sports economy beyond cricket
The emergence of alternative sports economies provides another fascinating dimension to Karnik’s grassroots argument.
According to the Sporting Nation report, football through the Indian Super League has grown into a Rs 500-600 crore economy, as have marathons and kabaddi, respectively.
“If you look at these three sports alone, we are crossing the Rs 1,500 crore number. That’s not a small number for a country like us, where we never had these kinds of leagues previously.”
Notably, distance running alone now contributes a quarter of the emerging sports market, which jumped 19% to Rs 2,461 crore from Rs 2,065 crore in 2023, reflecting India’s growing emphasis on fitness and endurance sports.
Karnik emphasises that this growth is fundamentally advertising-driven: “These numbers are predominantly coming from advertising. We have detailed data points in the report with dedicated sections on football, on marathons, and on pickleball. While pickleball’s numbers are not very big yet, India is one of the few countries where you have a professional pickleball league today.”
For brands seeking to capitalise on this transformation, Karnik identifies a clear target demographic.
“Any brand today that is talking to youth, Gen Z consumers, is considering sport today. Because the newer generation is more adaptive to any experiments in Indian sports. They are playing more than previous age groups.”
Future outlook
Looking ahead, Karnik maintains remarkably bullish optimism about the sector’s trajectory. Having tracked the industry for 13 years and witnessed consistent double-digit growth averaging 12-13% annually, he confidently predicts this momentum will continue for the next decade.
“I have very, very strong optimism that sports will continue to grow double-digit for the next 10 years. We are not a very mature sporting nation even today. So our base itself is Rs 16,500 crores. We will only grow from here.”
With Prime Minister Modi’s announcement of India’s intent to host the 2036 Olympics, the entire sports marketing ecosystem is poised for unprecedented expansion. The timing couldn’t be more propitious.
“I think the whole callout of the Prime Minister to potentially host the Olympics in 2036 is a big, big statement to be made. Because then if you have to work backwards, this will take serious amounts of work and commitment from every nook and corner, including the marketing and advertising community.”
In conclusion, the Indian sports economy is on an upswing, and the brands wanting to make the most of it might want to embrace Karnik’s grassroots strategy. Rather than waiting for the next sporting sensation to emerge fully formed, the smart money might well be on those willing to nurture talent from the ground up—creating not just endorsement opportunities but genuine sporting legacies that resonate with India’s increasingly sports-playing population.
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.