More and more companies discover that they can reach their customers not only by spending big money on famous teams or athletes. Sponsoring grass roots sports can often be just as effective and much cheaper. To encourage such sponsorship the government decided in 1992 to create Sportsmatch, following the success of a similar scheme for the arts. Now every year around £3 million is available to match every pound of sponsors money with a pound from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, channelled through Sport England. Sportsmatch is administered in England by the Institute of Sports Sponsorship, which in just over 6 years has made 2500 awards to sport which together with sponsors' money has generated £40 million of sponsorship for grass-roots development programmes. Similar schemes are funded separately in Wales and Scotland.