It must be a good sign for the sporting world. Last week, a group of sports commentators, advertisers and administrators gathered for a seminar on sports and the business opportunities it throws up.

Sportzbiz 2003 lasted almost eight hours and everyone agreed that sports marketing had great potential. Considering I make a living out of sport -- without playing it -- I could have told you that without travelling to Mumbai. But the seminar was illuminating -- and it was the first of its kind.

Globally, it is reckoned that the sports business is worth around $25 billion (that includes everything from equipment to sponsorship). But in India it is a relatively new phenomenon.

The key lies is professionalism. Sport, which was once just fun and games is now a big-money industry. Honorary positions in sports organisations and associations are a thing of the past abroad.

Unfortunately, honorary positions are still the norm in India --  even in cricket.

Two gentlemen --  both named Mark --  are the best examples of big bucks in sport. Mark McCormack, translated his friendship with golf legend Arnold Palmer into a giant business (International Management Group).

The late Mark Mascerenhas saw in cricket and Sachin Tendulkar, an ideal opportunity to change the way people looked at sports marketing in India.

SportzBiz 2003, put together by SportzPR, India's first sports communication consultancy, and indiantelevision.com, a portal, which focuses on the business of television and media, was divided into four sessions:

• "Business of sports -- is sports giving you the right bang for your marketing buck?";
• "Cricket and beyond cricket";
• "Sports and TV -- harnessing the power of television"; and
• "The future -- can we realise the full potential of sports marketing in India?"

The seminar did attract panellists like broadcaster Harsha Bhogle, K P S Gill (Indian Hockey Federation), Anil Khanna (All India Tennis Association), Kamal Morarka (vice president Cricket Board), Nazir Hoosein (Motorsports Association of India) and Shekhar Dutt (Director General of Sports Authority of India).

The advertising and media industry was represented by Starcom Worldwide general manager Ravi Kiran; Broadmind WPP Marketing Communications national director M Suku, Percept Advertising CEO Rajesh Pant and Times of India's sports editor, Ayaz Memon.

Sportspersons were represented by Michael Ferriera (former world billiards champion), Pullela Gopichand (former all England badminton champion) and India's youngest ever national racing champion Karun Chandhok.

It doesn't need a degree in management or rocket science to realise that television is crucial to sports marketing. ESPN-Star Sports' business development head Anurag Dahiya had a few warnings for the participants.

"Broadcasters must realise that it doesn't make business sense to depend solely on cricket. The single TV household feature also handicaps sports broadcasters."

Sports associations still depend on government largesse, but both Khanna and Gill want more support.

Associations are not willing to venture out and convince sponsors.

But sponsors will come only if TV finds the sport good enough to show, preferably live. Information must be readily available but most associations do not possess records of their own sport.

The closest any sport has come to turning out a good package has been professional golf in India. The excellent handling by Tiger Sports Marketing in the last four years has changed the face of golf.

Having a pro golfer like Brandon de Souza to head the organisation has helped.

Ravi Kiran, believes that sport is a great vehicle for advertising. "It is one of the few mediums that actively engage consumers. Other media are passive."

But he had words of warning: "As a medium, sports is under-disciplined, under exploited and under invested in India. Under-disciplined because it has too many vendors; under exploited because it has too little knowledge base. Under invested, because most of the money (70 per cent) goes into airtime or syndicated columns. The efforts in strengthening the grassroots are minimal or pathetic."

But, sports marketers also need to be pro-active. On their part they have not been able to activate community participation or create local heroes.

As one speaker said, India is the only country where people watch cricket for eight hours but don't play the game very often.