INDIA SPORTS INC. - HOT TO TROT!

INDIA SPORTS INC. - HOT TO TROT!

TURF 2014, India’s Largest International Convention on Business Of Sports.

6^th Nov 2014, Delhi: “Walk…Run…then Leap” – These three words succinctly captures the primary stages that any green athlete would need to go through in becoming a champion. Indian sports industry may not be taking leaps yet in reaching towards its goal of conducting the sports business in the most profitable, efficient, and sustainable way, but it’s definitely trying hard for the sprints and persistently raising its bar to bring itself at par with the best international practices. In this effort, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, along with Federation Of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), organized TURF 2014 (6^th Global Sports Summit) - India’s Largest International Convention on Business Of Sports - as part of the first edition of India Sports Expo 2014 from 6^th – 8^th November, at Major Dhyanchand National Stadium, New Delhi.

TURF 2014 was kicked off with the release of a knowledge paper titled: Business of Sports – “Aiming higher… Reaching Further!” which resonated with the ultimate purpose of the organization of the convention. Keeping this theme in focus, the conference was organized in the form of multiple panel discussions and sessions bringing stakeholders from both Indian and global sports sector to the table. The diverse nature of the profiles of the participants which included sports persons, administrators, sponsors, consultants, doctors, editors, founders and owners of sports management companies, etc. facilitated in bringing out kaleidoscopic views and angles to the session topics which ranged from - Creating and Planning Systems for Excellence in Sports through PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model; Sports infrastructure development; Role of Sports Experts; Need for Skills Development for High Performance and Advanced Training; Role of Media in creating Sports brands (awareness) and connecting with Grassroots - to - Understanding the recipe of success from the horse’s mouth - Interaction and Conversation with Sports Champions; and Sustaining Sports Business: New Faces and New Ideas – thereby, resulting in comprehensive discussions and helping the conference cover the various aspects of the theme panoramically over the two day convention.

The questions posed to the panel in the first discussion of Day One, by the moderator Siddhanth Anney, Editor-in-Chief, Sports Illustrated, included- Does India Inc. have a plan and system to produce champions at International level? Is there a need of policy intervention in Indian Sports? What is the role of Government on various policies?  How is private sector playing its role?...The panel felt that Indian Sports Industry is still in very nascent stage, and the sad thing was that despite being among the best in fields like technology and medicine globally, we are still not able to provide and apply that expertise in our home ground. They admitted that the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders are not clearly defined and agreed to the view that the government’s role should be to provide the infrastructure at recreational level to everyone, whereas the federations should focus on developing the athletes at competitive level. Coming to the role of the private sector, the panelists seemed to appeal to the industry to invest their corporate social responsibility (CSR) money in a planned and effective manner with emphasis on the measure of a definite impact to the society at the end. The panel put forward the view that amidst all the stakeholders, the role of media as both watchdogs and whistleblowers becomes essential for competitive development.

The 2^nd panel discussion on Sports Infrastructure Development started with the question posed to the international partners of the Indian sports story, who were sitting in the panel, on what did they think as the reasons for sports infrastructure in India being so far behind. Vincent Van Noord, President, India-Netherland Business Association felt that it is the cultural difference in India and Netherlands that Indian sports infrastructure is still lagging far behind than his home country. He explained that since a lot of people in India have to struggle to survive, the focus of the people is to get a good job, and thus, the parents pressurize the kids for studies, school, and homework, leaving them with no time for pursuing sports. He thinks that if the parents change their mindset a bit and emphasized on balancing both studies and sports equally, the government may also step in to take some serious action. Carrying the discussion forward to economics of sports infrastructure and the need for striking balancing between the White Elephants and the basic sports field, Terry Phelan, a former professional footballer and sports expert from Ten Sports, asserted that before focusing on building new infrastructure, it is very important to see how the existing facilities (like the Dhyanchand Stadium itself) are getting used and are they getting used enough in an efficient and a profitable manner or are they just for the show off? If not used, the question should be who is paying for maintaining them? Vincent added to this by talking about Amsterdam Arena’s full occupancy throughout the year. He compared empty stadiums to the airplanes on ground – both losing money. Taking example of the Nehru Stadium in Delhi, he suggested that stadiums at such prime locations could be easily turned to revenue generating properties if measures like renting some areas as office space, exploiting the retail scope around the stadiums, etc are properly done. Selling naming rights to the stadiums and usage of sports facilities in schools and colleges by leasing them out were among some other ideas on how to increase revenue through usage of sports infra and real estate. Further, the discussion moved to the need of aligning the state of the art infrastructure with local planning policies through sustainable models and infra development systems. Vincent said that building a stadium needs proper research and planning, and just building a 5,00,000 capacity stadium for records is usually not a good business model. Anand Krishnan, Chairman, Fidelis World, emphasized on the need of developing more infrastructure around the actual stadium for training and practice while agreeing to the fact that downsizing the stadiums could help in their better utilization. From the amount of stress the panelists laid on the planning aspect, one thing that came out clear was that poor planning would get only White Elephants.

The last discussion for the day brought Dr. Pratik Gupta, Sports Orthopedic Surgeon, young Sagarika Chahal, former national basketball player and co-founder, Indian Collegiate Athletics Program (ICAP) ,and Sujit Panigrahi, co-founder, Fitness 365, to the round table where they talked about the role of sports experts in athlete development and making athletes from good to great. Sagarika began the discussion highlighting the current scenario in the country where unfortunately, most coaches teach from their own experience and not after undergoing accredited and standardized training programs for coaching. Explaining the phases of an athlete development, she explained how at different stages an athlete requires different kinds of experts. At earliest level, it is the physical education teachers and parents who need to be capable of identifying a child’s talent and interest. In the 8-15 years age group, the child needs to be exposed to diet experts and skills development coaches. Then, the requirement of expert level coaches who could help the athlete to perform at competitive level comes in picture. At last, the elite coaches for producing the world champions are required. At college level, the requirement of psychologists exists for athletes that take break and need support to come back after studies. Sagarika’s company, ICAP, is one such company focusing on reaching out to colleges facilitating the training programs for coaches. Pratik added that trained scouts and doctors could help in screening of the young athletes based on their body structure and dynamics. The discussion ended with challenges players faces in colleges which makes them dropout from the sports and how through proper coaching and mentoring such situations could be avoided.

This marked the end of the series of comprehensive talks on Day 1 of TURF 2014. It’s difficult to say when India Inc. would be ready for its big giant leap in the Sports Sector but one thing to cheer about for everyone is that we are on the track. But is it only a matter of time that we start leaping or do we need innovative and radical changes in our practice?