Sports have always received step brotherly treatment during most quarters of our life. During schooldays, our parents would stress on our academics and would fume at the thought of us pursuing any sport as a career. The kid could at best hope to play cricket at district or state level without sacrificing his/her studies. There is a saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. What if Jack’s work is to play a particular sport? Well, that makes Jack a really smart boy I guess.
Sports in India other than cricket desperately need a shot in the arm and it hasn’t been forthcoming from the corporate world. The advertisers aren’t convinced of a world beyond cricket. However I feel, there is a vast talent pool that hasn’t been tapped yet. Let’s take the case of Bhiwani Boxing club in Haryana known as the Cuba of India. Most of our Boxers who make it to the Olympics are a product of this Club. Recently in the Beijing Olympics, Vijender Kumar, Jitender & Akhil Kumar made us proud. All three of them had struggled through life practicing their art at this club. The Infrastructure at the club is in a really bad state and would welcome some kind of sponsorship. All it needs is a Management Agency to pitch for it. It’s surprising that it has been neglected for so long. Recently Sahara India has promised to sponsor the club as well the Indian boxers. With the introduction of World Premier League of Boxing and India being chosen as a franchise we can hope to see some exciting matches and India represented by the finest boxers mostly from this club. The boxers could earn crores if all goes well (upto 15 crores windfall for every pugilist as per the calculations). Videocon has picked up the Indian franchise to be based out of Delhi.
While talking about sports other than cricket, we can’t be too far from the world’s most beautiful game – Football. For years, we have been waiting for Indian football to blossom into an Asian Powerhouse if not in the world. The Promise by Bharti Group of a football academy and an Indian Team in the World Cup still remains a dream. It’s been embroiled in several controversies right from the land allocated for the project. Some of the sports in India suffer from the Federation problems and incompetent heads that have been ruling the federation like their personal fiefdoms for years. Just to put matters in perspective, some of the sports federations in India have had the same Presidents for decades. Accountability is non-existent.
Saina Nehwal the rising badminton star felt short changed by the some of our administrators in organizing the upcoming World Championship in India. The tickets have been so overpriced that the turnout for the matches is going to be minimal. Having won a few tournaments in the run-up to this event, it would have ideal to use the home support to her advantage. She is amongst the favourites to win the singles’ trophy and would have dazzled in the presence of home support. With a little bit of thought and some management skills, an amicable situation could have been worked out for the pricing issue.
Sports Management is a field in which the IIMs lack a strong Alum base. It would be great to some of the best management brains in India in this sector helping to put India on the world sports map where we lag behind by a huge margin. With organizations like IMG & Globosport gaining prominence, we might see more management graduates entering this industry. Viren Rasquinha, the former captain of the Indian Hockey team completed his MBA from the Indian School of Business this year. He is already in the process of applying his learnings from the course in the sporting arena. IMG’ India operations was also headed by an IIM alum. Hopefully in the years to come, we will see the success of IPL in cricket trickling over to other sports and the industry evolving along the lines of baseball, football & basketball in USA into a lucrative industry not just for the Sportsmen but also the management gurus running the show.
Article authored by Akshat Patil