GroupM ESP, the sports and entertainment arm of GroupM Media, and IIM Ahmedabad, collaborated on a white paper that assessed what has and hasn't worked around the world and what constitutes best practice in making sports leagues work.
The Pro Kabbadi League (PKL) – currently being promoted by Bollywood actor Salman Khan – achieved an unexpected level of success in its first year, gaining high TVRs and levels of engagement among viewers.
It has yet to name a title sponsor for this year, however, with interested parties reported to have balked at the sums being demanded by broadcaster Star Sports.
While marketers have so far tended to focus on television, there are also digital options and team sponsorships to be taken up.
Anand Chakravarthy, West Head of Maxus, thought that digital "could be an interesting opportunity for marketers to leverage", given the buzz around season one and the trend towards "snacking content consumption".
Ashish Bhasin, chairman & CEO at Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia, said that advertisers were showing more interest in PKL this year but hesitated to describe it as significant.
"It [PKL] will definitely do well this year, but you cannot compare it with a cricketing event," he said.
Cricket certainly gives advertisers reach. "In India to reach the masses it's either cricket or Bollywood," Nitin Aggarwal, CEO of Prayag Polymers, a bathroom fittings manufacturer, told Campaign India.
To that end, the company is the title sponsor of the India-Zimbabwe one-day series starting today. But, Aggarwal added, "you cannot estimate an ROI when it comes to cricket, because it's unpredictable".
Data sourced from IndianTelevision.com, Exchange4Media, Campaign India; additional content by Warc staff