Fuelling Sports

There is this powerful Earl Warren quote – “The sports section records people's accomplishments; the front page nothing but man's failures”. If the sports section continues to stick to this adage, it will certainly do more good than harm.

My thoughts on sports industry have been influenced both as a sports fan and then subsequently working in the sports industry.

It is said for a country like India, there are much more pressing issues like Education, Poverty Alleviation, Health & Sanitation (huge thumbs up for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan) & Science. There is no denying this fact. But, it doesn’t mean that Sports should take a backseat to all of these issues. For anyone in doubt, I would suggest just try googling ‘benefits of playing sports’.

A lot many good meaning people have talked about building the right ecosystem for sports in India for aeons now. Also, the people who matter in sport – the ministry, sports federations, sports persons, media and the increasing number of sports organisations have all made the right noises and sincere efforts. There is definitely no shortage of expertise in this industry and there are numerous examples of grassroots sports development success stories in various corners of this great nation.

The question still remains – Why has all this still not resulted in improvement of the actual ecosystem? The questions also follow the same four year Olympic cycle. At the end of each Olympic Games, there are committees, discussions, articles and now TV debates too as to why India has underperformed when compared to the poorest of the poor African nations (no disrespect to these nations).

Fundamentally, laws of economics dictate for any sector to flourish and prosper, there should be an equally good financial support. Case in point: The two biggest success stories in India over the past two decades have been the IT & Telecom sectors. From 2000 to 2010, their Compound annual growth rate (CAGR ) was in the range of 30-35%.

Frankly, the numbers in Sports haven’t been bad too. The recently concluded Indian Super League, billed as the birth of a footballing nation had headline grabbing total sponsorship numbers of more than 50 crores. I am not even mentioning the numbers in cricket especially the mother of all leagues – the IPL.

One part of the sports ecosystem which is projected to do well is the sports goods and equipment sector with expected revenues of $ 1 billion in 2015 (to put this in context, the US market for the same is projected to hit $ 23 billion this year).

To sum it up: As far as the vexing issue of progressing towards the ideal sports ecosystem is concerned, there are more questions than answers. I sincerely hope – millions of sports fans and professionals working in the industry like me would be able to find some answers for this in the remaining 350 days of this year (yes, time is always running out) and further ahead.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the above post are my own.