Mumbai: Corporate entities investing in promoting sports and building sporting infrastructure through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding has seen a spike in recent years, according to data released by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
According to the latest data published on its website, 1200 companies spent a combined ₹526.14 crore in 2022-23 towards promoting sports through CSR investments, nearly double compared to the previous financial year ( ₹291.75 crore). A decade ago in the 2014-15, that figure was a little over ₹55 crore.
Earlier this year during a first-of-its-kind corporate roundtable, sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya stressed upon the importance of corporate support in building sports infrastructure and talent development programs as India makes a push to host the 2036 Olympics. The minister also proposed a model where a corporate entity adopts a particular sport.
“Each corporate entity should focus on a single sport to ensure dedicated attention and optimal resource allocation, while also enabling effective athlete branding to align with CSR investments and promotional activities,” Mandaviya said.
Among the biggest contributors on sports from the ₹526.14 crore pot through 2022-23 were Reliance Industries Limited ( ₹56.31 crore), Rungta Sons Private Limited ( ₹35.63), REC Limited ( ₹30.5), Tata Steel Limited ( ₹26.93) and Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited ( ₹13.08). CSR regulations mandate companies to spend at least two percent of their net profits from the preceding three financial years on CSR activities.
Of the 36 states and union territories from where the money came in, Maharashtra topped the charts ( ₹68.29 crore) followed by Odisha ( ₹51.28), Karnataka ( ₹44.27), Delhi ( ₹41.57) and Tamil Nadu ( ₹28.45).
Some companies in the list of spenders are also more directly involved in the country’s sporting ecosystem. Reliance, for example, has a CSR arm through which it runs various programs ranging from the Reliance Foundation Youth Sports at the school and college level and the Reliance Foundation Olympic Program that supports some of India’s elite athletes. JSW, through JSW Sports, also supports a range of top athletes across Olympic and other sports including two-time Olympic medallist Neeraj Chopra.
Beyond the corporate entities, some of the country’s most prominent non-profit foundations that specialise in spotting and recruiting young talent and providing support to elite athletes also rely on CSR partnerships for funding.
According to the data, while Reliance has detailed its ₹56.31 crore spend to “promoting grassroot sports” pan India, Rungta Sons Pvt Ltd, a mining company registered in Kolkata, has directed its money for sporting projects in Odisha and Jharkhand. REC Limited spent ₹25 crore towards promotion of sports in Delhi and ₹5.5 crore for “construction of Rec motorsports race track and sports complex” in Mizoram.
Tata Steel has spent a large chunk of money for running sports centres across the country, and a small percentage of its CSR pie is also kept for promoting tribal sports. Kotak Mahindra’s ₹13.08 crore expenditure is split between two well-known training centres in the country — Inspire Institute of Sport in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur and the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad.
However, while the data points to a considerable shot in the arm for supporting and promoting sports through the CSR route, sports continues to remain only a small piece of the overall cake.
Reliance Industries Limited had a total CSR spend of ₹743.4 crore through the 2022-23 financial year, of which ₹56.31 crore was directed towards sports. That’s less than 10 percent of the total expenditure.
Data of Tata Steel Limited and REC Limited presents a similar picture. Sports ( ₹26.93) makes up for a fraction of Tata Steel’s overall CSR spending of ₹475.11 crore, which is slightly higher in the case of REC Limited ( ₹30.5 for sports of the total expenditure of ₹204.31 crore). From Rungta Sons’ total CSR spend of ₹88.08 crore, a little over half went towards promoting education, followed by sports.
