Sam Balsara, founder, chairman and managing director of Madison World and Madison Communications, is all for choosing that 'lambi race ka ghoda' when it comes to sports event organisers choosing their benefactors.

At the CII summit on the business of sports and entertainment, he stated, "…the promoters or organisers may do well to choose their benefactors with care. And I think such benefactors have to be what I would call, 'lambi race ka ghoda.' Because if they are not then I think they can do more damage to a sport when they are trying to evangelise it."

However, with only two teams in the famous Indian Premiere League (IPL) that turned profitable in 2015, the glass looks half full for those investors seeking to invest in the business of sports in India. While some might argue that they invested in sports for the sheer love of it, experts on the panel of discussion regarding 'Corporatisation of sports' at the summit stated that business of sports implies profit. Sports, they claimed was like any other business, which is not to be confused with love.

Though, the sports leagues business in India has been off to a late start in comparison to the rest of the world. Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab were the most profitable teams in the IPL with a 30% year-on-year growth in revenues and a 54% YoY growth in profits, a report titled 'The Business of Sports' by KPMG-CII stated. In the first season of the Indian Super League (ISL), each of the eight teams lost Rs 35-40 crore, the report stated.

The only profitable league in India till date is the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) with its 435 million viewers, the report stated. Balsara stated that back in the '80s his company paid a 'princely' sum of Rs 4.17 crore. He stressed that the advertising market in those days was only Rs 1,000 crore in comparison to today's Rs 50,000 crore market. The Indian advertisement and sponsorship market has not grown much since then, he claimed.

The Indian sponsorship market in 2015 which grew at 12.5% to Rs 5,190 crore was only a fraction of the global sports market in 2014 which is estimated to be at Rs 37.8–44.2 lakh crore, a report by KPMG stated.Return on Investments (RoI) was what keeps investors out of this business as it may seem to be a somewhat long-term investment.

"Remember when you are talking about the business of sport then it implies profit. So anybody who is involved in the business of sport has necessarily to worry about profit at the end of the day; however distant that end may be. I'm just saying that profit may be a long time coming and you must have both the orientation and the risk appetite to wait that long otherwise sports could get sort of endangered," Balsara stated.