Sports sponsorship by corporates in India may be still dominated mainly by cricket, but the trend is changing in the recent times as India Inc. has been showing an open interest in other sports too.

The latest example of this is Mahindra & Mahindra's announcement to launch a community based, non-professional basket ball league in the country in association with National Basketball Association (NBA). The league that will be called Mahindra NBA Challenge, will focus on encouraging young talent and developing the basketball sports in the country.

There will be two categories in which this championship will be played. First will be for players within the age group of the 14-17 years and the second will be 18 years and above. The matches of the Mahindra NBA Challenge will be played in three cities Mumbai, Bangalore and Ludhiana. The first season of the competition will kick off on April 17th, 2010.

Commenting on the event, Anand Mahindra, Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Mahindra Group said, "We have to make sure that the sport is built from ground up and the top down approach, for this, is wrong."

The President of International NBA, Heidi Uebberoth emphasized that their aim is to make basketball the second biggest in the country, only after cricket. That's the reason why they are trying to build it from the grass root level.