The Mahindra NBA Challenge

By Ayaz Memon

Among the more imaginative and purposeful initiatives in sport in India is the partnership between the Mahindra Group and the NBA, which kicks off on April 17. The Mahindra NBA Challenge is a multi-city league for people 14 and over, and cutting across genders.

I have maintained in most of my articles my reasons for being bullish about the growth of India as a sporting nation (and destination), and the Mahindra NBA League reinforces my belief. Clearly, there is a rising awareness among the biggest corporate houses that sport is not only a great CSR activity, but is financially viable too as the country’s economic-might grows.

Different corporate houses will, of course, view this opportunity differently. I spoke briefly to Anand Mahindra, vice chairman and managing director of Mahindra Group at a dinner to announce the tie-up between Reliance Industries and IMG for expanding the company’s exploits in sports, and he was clear that his company was looking at nurturing youngsters and creating a sporting milieu through supporting some sports at the professional level, and some at the grassroots.

Mahindras have traditionally chosen football, and Mahindra United remains a pre-eminent team even now in the national football competitions. I reckon that in due course Mahindras will look at supporting football at the rudimentary level too. But what is significant at this stage is that they have chosen to support another sport too.

About basketball, the company seems gung ho, and with the Basketball Federation of India also involved, it seems a happy three-way arrangement with the NBA which will bring its renowned expertise to the table. Clearly, the agenda is to promote basketball aggressively.

But the league will be played in a convivial manner. The Mahindra NBA Challenge, as has been announced, will be a recreational league with footprints initially in Bangalore, Mumbai and Ludhiana before spreading to the other cities. There will be two age group divisions, 14-17 and the 18-plus, to ensure that the league’s purpose and benefit are not diluted.

The league promises to acquaint freshers with the fundamentals of the game and diehards with a more competitive environment. The plans entail not just playing in India, but taking the league overseas too. This is an ambitious plan, but as I have said earlier too, redolent of the major changes that are taking place in the Indian mindset about sports.

It is widely believed that Indian sport is only about cricket, and if you were visiting India at the time of the IPL, you might agree with that opinion. Yet, major and interesting changes are taking place at the subterranean level (for now) and the effects of these will become more transparent as the months go by.

Traditionally, Mahindras have stayed away from cricket, but even so, Anand Mahindra’s sentiments on why he chose basketball are pertinent if only to establish that the changes that are taking place in India vis-à-vis sport resonate even in the highest echelons of society and the corporate world.

“In a cricket loving nation such as India, we feel it is important to encourage other sports as well and we believe basketball is perfectly suited to bring communities together and promote healthy, active lifestyles to Indian youth,” said Anand Mahindra when the tie-up with NBA was announced.

I see this as significant because not only does this involve a sport only for its competitive aspect but also for its benefits in improving the health of a nation and improving community life. These are aspects that are not conventionally factored in when computing the wealth of a country, but play no mean part in this.

The old adage of a healthy country being a wealthy country has greater merit than just being a cliché.