Football kicks kabaddi out of the ground, in ground sponsorship

Next to advertising centered around sporting events, the billboards and the ground signages contribute the highest revenues to sports sponsorship.
Cricket, in India, naturally claims the largest share of the pie of ground sponsorship, with 50 per cent of the ground sponsorship revenues coming from the so-called gentleman's game.

The beautiful game and the one that sees the maximum participation in terms of number of countries at its world cup, football has overtaken as the second most popular sport for ground sponsorship - pushing kabaddi to third spot.
Ground sponsorship for football rose almost 63 per cent last year, compared to a near four per cent decline in 2016, vis-a-vis the year before that.

The home grown sport of Kabaddi, which of late has been bestowed some glamour thanks to the celebrity owners such as Abhishek Bachchan, saw an increase of two and half times in its ground sponsorship in 2016, before sobering down by 6.55 per cent last year.

Thanks to corporate sponsorship and corporate honchos' participation in marathons, the event has picked up, both in terms of participation and advertising bucks, and is poised to enter the Rs 100 crore club in ground sponsorship.

Other sports, like badminton, whose Premier Badminton League was launched in fits and starts, with a two year gap between its first two seasons, is still in its nascent stages in terms of ground sponsorship, while tennis has actually suffered a decline in its ground sponsorship due to absence of big stars on the field.