Growth of Sports In India
By Ayaz Memon
Having spent the early part of this week attending the Global Sports Summit organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi, the last vestige of doubt in my mind that India is on the cusp of a major breakthrough in sports has vanished.
This summit was the first, but by no means the last. There is an India International Sports Summit being planned for late March next year, preceding the World Cup soccer tournament in South Africa and setting the tone for the Commonwealth Games in India later in the year.
Clearly, winds of change are blowing in a country that has otherwise been dismal in its pursuit and support of sport. Partnerships between government and the private sector for creating state of the art infrastructure is being widely discussed now with, happily, the corporate sector participating in such discussions with greater conviction than ever before. Talent scouting across various sports disciplines is being intensified, the quest for multiple gold medals is not just pie-in-the-sky stuff from dreamers. Indian sport seems to be getting a vision.
This is a far cry from say even a decade ago when sport was considered pastime – and a non-lucrative one at that – in India. Why, when the erstwhile president A P J Abdul Kalam had put out his otherwise laudable Vision 20-20 (for circa 2020) for the country, the only thing he had omitted was winning a gold medal at the Olympics! This is not to criticize the former prez for negligence, only to highlight the low priority for sport in Indian life.
The reason why I have digressed so much on this website is simply to highlight the fact that India is on the cusp of a major revolution in sports, and tat basketball could be not just a catalyst in this transformation, but also one of its biggest beneficiaries. At an informal level, this came through clearly while speaking to Indian sports officials, delegates and representatives of potential sponsors who were in attendance.
How is this likely to happen? I have written in my previous columns of why basketball has an intrinsic appeal to Indian which has not yet been exploited. The sport is relatively cheap, does not demand too much infrastructure or equipment, is easy to follow, provides wholesome entertainment and also contributes substantially to improving the health standards of its practitioners. Perhaps most importantly – and I know there will be dissenting voices for this – it is also easy for Indians to adapt to. It demands a certain amount of dexterity which comes fairly easily to people from this part of the world. Of course stamina, speed and strength are attributes that are lacking, but these can only improve with practice and mentoring in diet, training etc.
It will be asked, and the logic of the query is sound, that this being the case, why has basketball not yet taken off in India. I believe this is largely because of the inhrenet inertia in India regarding sports coupled with an utter lack of imagination and expertise in developing a market for a sport, making it viable in spectatorship and monetization. This is where the NBA, now that it has decided to come to India, can make a huge difference.
What method in popularizing the sport in this nascent market is, of course the key question. Should it be a gradual, structured approach or a Big Push? On the empirical evidence available, both work but I am in favour of the latter only because I am impatient to see rapid development. I believe that the Big Push strategy will compel attention and put basketball in the vanguard of the impending sport revolution instead of being an also-ran.
How the NBA can manage this is something that I cannot explain in any great detail. Marketing and monetizing sport is not my expertise; understanding passion, seeing latent talent is. I would think that if in some way India is made into a hub where big-time basketball is introduced over the next 18-24 months would bring about a dramatic change in the mindset of people in India, and subsequently the quality of basketball played here. Matches showcasing the talent of Kobe Bryant, Shaq O’Neal, Lebron James etc on Indian soil, as it were, would set a tempo that would be difficult to reverse. As the immortal John Lennon song goes, `Imagine”.