As a passionate sports lover and a dispassionate journo, once upon a time that I was, I always wondered how long will it take for Indian sports to get professionalised. Well, it surely won't happen in my lifetime. Even the little professionalisation that has happened in a sport like cricket isn't really professional. While one sporting league has gone the American or call it the English way, others aren't even seeing the light of the day.
And we dream of becoming an Olympic nation. How? By getting the apex sports body banned, and one by one other federations attached to it also getting suspensions. While then as a journo it was easy to be an arm-chair critic, but even after coming on the other side of the fence, I have realised that I wasn't really only a critic. There is very little one can do of these babus sitting at the helm of various federations.
And even the one that is professional in its approach is so busy making money that the sport is secondary objective, revenue is primary. Well, fine, fair, but then something called accountability is so missing. Be it the unprofessional or professional setups. Team loses, players responsible, individual athlete loses even then it's his bad form. What leads to the bad form is no one's concern or how to resurrect isn't even a thought. Babus and autocrats running it aren't asked a question. Who has the authority to question them anyway?
As a hero-worshipping country, we tend to get high on one big victory and not look at what happens after that. India's 2011 Cricket World Cup win was commendable. But since then our team hasn't really played like world champions. A hard-earned ascendancy to Test rankings was all but lost in a matter of time. And the BCCI is busy making plans for IPL 5. Is it 5th or 6th edition?
I don't remember, every year its the same tamaasha. Nothing new to look forward to. The Australian Big Bash on the other hand has good quality cricket and something new for the fans to look forward to. Simple but never thought of innovation like lighting the bails and stumps have added value to consumer experience, even the spider cam.
A handful of medals in a handful of disciplines. What next? How to carry forward the momentum? Any blueprint, roadmap to 2016 Games? No. But the country's body is banned. Why? For a greedy babus quest for power and khursi. Can anyone question them. Yes. The sports ministry, but what can they do? Nothing till now. At least when Mr. Maken was at helm, there were answers and a few solutions acted upon, but Rahul Baba's friend Mr. Jitendra hasn't been able to come to terms with this.
If nothing, the sportsmen across all major disciplines need to be paid well. If they need to be at par with professionals across the world, they need to be paid like professionals too. PSUs, who have been the biggest employers to sportsmen in our country, aren't really good paymasters. At the end of it, with a nil-balance federation and a peanut paying job, all you get is a sub-standard athlete. Heard of this naa, "Throw peanuts get monkeys"
While there is a league coming up for every sport, none is going to get any M-boost for cricket always did, and will continue to take the majority of the spending pie. Simple reasons; played more, seen more, a few good results overshadow all the bad results and players made into larger than life figures. By the BCCI and by us too.
Corporates want RoI, they may pump in money saying its CSR and they feel for Indian sports and this and that. But at the end of it, what matters to them is the bottom line. Trust me on this. The day Indian hockey starts giving great results, cricket will find it difficult to keep the sponsors intact. While cricket has given us lot of glory to be proud of, hockey is an emotional favourite.
It goes for any other sport too. If the athlete is winning consistently, and being at par with the top guys, he or she will never find it difficult to find a sponsor and therefore in return will have to produce results too. Look at Saina. Has won so much at such an early age that every loss is now a decline story. Sania on the other hand was only a pretty face but could not do much for herself or the sport.
One Mary Kom, one Gagan Narang, one Abhinav Bindra and a few more won't do any good, especially once in four years. We need more of them. Plenty. For sports to become a discipline, it has to be run with discipline. Democracy at the moment isn't yielding results. Maybe sports should be handled the Chinese way if it can't be sold the American way. For everything you buy in this country, China is your alternate, why not for sports too? Food for thought.
And we dream of becoming an Olympic nation. How? By getting the apex sports body banned, and one by one other federations attached to it also getting suspensions. While then as a journo it was easy to be an arm-chair critic, but even after coming on the other side of the fence, I have realised that I wasn't really only a critic. There is very little one can do of these babus sitting at the helm of various federations.
And even the one that is professional in its approach is so busy making money that the sport is secondary objective, revenue is primary. Well, fine, fair, but then something called accountability is so missing. Be it the unprofessional or professional setups. Team loses, players responsible, individual athlete loses even then it's his bad form. What leads to the bad form is no one's concern or how to resurrect isn't even a thought. Babus and autocrats running it aren't asked a question. Who has the authority to question them anyway?
As a hero-worshipping country, we tend to get high on one big victory and not look at what happens after that. India's 2011 Cricket World Cup win was commendable. But since then our team hasn't really played like world champions. A hard-earned ascendancy to Test rankings was all but lost in a matter of time. And the BCCI is busy making plans for IPL 5. Is it 5th or 6th edition?
I don't remember, every year its the same tamaasha. Nothing new to look forward to. The Australian Big Bash on the other hand has good quality cricket and something new for the fans to look forward to. Simple but never thought of innovation like lighting the bails and stumps have added value to consumer experience, even the spider cam.
A handful of medals in a handful of disciplines. What next? How to carry forward the momentum? Any blueprint, roadmap to 2016 Games? No. But the country's body is banned. Why? For a greedy babus quest for power and khursi. Can anyone question them. Yes. The sports ministry, but what can they do? Nothing till now. At least when Mr. Maken was at helm, there were answers and a few solutions acted upon, but Rahul Baba's friend Mr. Jitendra hasn't been able to come to terms with this.
If nothing, the sportsmen across all major disciplines need to be paid well. If they need to be at par with professionals across the world, they need to be paid like professionals too. PSUs, who have been the biggest employers to sportsmen in our country, aren't really good paymasters. At the end of it, with a nil-balance federation and a peanut paying job, all you get is a sub-standard athlete. Heard of this naa, "Throw peanuts get monkeys"
While there is a league coming up for every sport, none is going to get any M-boost for cricket always did, and will continue to take the majority of the spending pie. Simple reasons; played more, seen more, a few good results overshadow all the bad results and players made into larger than life figures. By the BCCI and by us too.
Corporates want RoI, they may pump in money saying its CSR and they feel for Indian sports and this and that. But at the end of it, what matters to them is the bottom line. Trust me on this. The day Indian hockey starts giving great results, cricket will find it difficult to keep the sponsors intact. While cricket has given us lot of glory to be proud of, hockey is an emotional favourite.
It goes for any other sport too. If the athlete is winning consistently, and being at par with the top guys, he or she will never find it difficult to find a sponsor and therefore in return will have to produce results too. Look at Saina. Has won so much at such an early age that every loss is now a decline story. Sania on the other hand was only a pretty face but could not do much for herself or the sport.
One Mary Kom, one Gagan Narang, one Abhinav Bindra and a few more won't do any good, especially once in four years. We need more of them. Plenty. For sports to become a discipline, it has to be run with discipline. Democracy at the moment isn't yielding results. Maybe sports should be handled the Chinese way if it can't be sold the American way. For everything you buy in this country, China is your alternate, why not for sports too? Food for thought.
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