Worldwide, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sponsorship play an important role in financing sports activities. Inspite of a mammoth sponsorship and advertising market, coupled with mandatory contribution under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Sports in India faces a huge dearth of funds.
In India, during the year 2019, the total sponsorship in sports was around ₹ 10,000 crore but it was mainly restricted to very few sports. Out of which Cricket got the maximum share. Few years back, to fund sports development, the Government of India, under the Companies Act, included sports in the list of CSR funding.
The lack of knowledge, vagueness and confusion about sporting activities, events and championships, absence of professionalised sports marketing firms, trust deficits in sports Federations and Associations are some of reasons for not to get enough funding, inspite of Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR). Annually, sports related activities could garner only around one percent out of approximate ₹12000 cr. Therefore, it is necessary to market and professionalise sports and recreational organisations to attract their share of CSR money. Similarly, through policy interventions, it is also necessary to direct and rationalise more CSR money towards the sports sector.