Sania Mirza

India never had a rich sporting history in comparison to other countries. If we take Olympics as a benchmark, India has always struggled to find a place in the top of the medals tally. Besides a few selected sports such as hockey and cricket, India has not made a major mark on any other sporting event if we look back at the history of Indian sports. The problem always is related to the development of good sporting infrastructure in the country and the perceptions of the people towards sports as a career launcher.

However, things have started moving ahead for the good if we look back at the past few years of performances by Indian sports stars. Government of India Sports Ministry has started making huge investments into the development of other sports in India. Many sports bodies have been set up to look after different sports in India. These bodies function in coordination with the government in ensuring that best of the facilities are provided to Indian athletes and sports stars.

These recent developments have started producing excellent results for Indian sports. We have witnessed a flurry of individual accomplishments in other important Indian sports. Major international sporting events have witnessed emergence of Indian sporting icons. 2008 Summer Olympics at Beijing saw some amazing achievements from India. Abhinav Bindra, India’s ace shooter did India proud by winning the first individual gold medal. Boxer Vijendar Kumar did India proud by winning the Bronze in Men’s Middleweight category competition. In the same Olympics Sushil Kumar, the Indian wrestler earned a bronze in the Men’s Freestyle 66 kg wrestling contest. These are just few of the recent examples where Indian sports stars have excelled and made a mark for themselves and brought glory to India. Indian sports will always find a mention of the cricketing great Sachin Tendulkar who has made the country proud and is considered as the best cricketer in the world to have ever played the game of cricket. Sania Mirza, the golden girl from the game of tennis has also surprised many by being the only Indian to have defeated three top 10 ranked female tennis stars in her illustrious tennis career. Vishwanathan Anand the maestro of Chess, is another famous Indian sports icon who has been a world champion on more than one occasion. Pankaj Advani, the reigning world billiards champion is another name that comes to mind when we talk about the rapid transformation of Indian sports. These sporting icons of India have brought name and fame to India by their many achievements and have proved time and time again that they are nothing short of best when it comes to sports.

Lets begin with a sport. Say wrestling, way back in the 80s and 90s wrestling was a dominant sport in the United Sates. Major promotions like the World Championship of Wrestling and the World Wrestling Entertainment promoted the event through various house shows. Later these events were broadcasted through the television media and look where the game stands today. Even in India every single household has a member dedicated to the sport. A small example is that of the Great Khali who has held the world heavyweight championship. And this was only possible because of a Sport Marketing Company. Titan Sports in collaboration with TNT did the trick. According to W.Shank (Sports Marketing Executive ) Sport Marketing refers to specific application of marketing principles and process to Sports product and marketing of non stop products that associate with sports. Products associated with sports include various things like Player Endorsements, testimonials, event marketing and stadium advertising. All in all it raises the money involved with the game and hence the standard of the game on a whole.

Lets take the case of a Sports Marketing Company in India. In India the game that gets the maximum amount of attention is cricket. When the inaugural world cup was held way back in 1975, a player of the Indian Cricket Team at the most earned a sum of Rs 2000 for a one day match and 1500 per day for a test match. Forward to the year 2008. A player with the smallest contract is paid approx. RS 35,000/ for a one-day series and Rs 40,000/ per day for a test match. This was only possible as people started taking interest in the game. Television channels, newspapers, advertisement hoardings all took required measures to make the game immensely popular. Commercials aired on TV featured players endorsing brands or commodities that were popular with the general public, thereby making these players household names. If a Survey is conducted on the top 5 richest sportspersons in Asia, the names would undoubtedly be Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Sania Mirza, Vishwanathan Anand and Shoaib Akhtar. Technically speaking the survival of a sports marketing company is in the hands of its promoters, i.e the companies that sponsor the sport event.

Generally speaking the functioning and more importantly the success of the sports marketing company lies in the hand of its partner. Good publicity of a player is needed. This is where a public relation agency is needed. As sports is primarily into entertainment a media and entertainment company is also needed. Going by the current standards the two biggest sports marketing companies in India NEO sports and Nimbus were recently formed and in no time has had a good grip in all sporting events in India. Currently in India sports marketing is a multi billion dollar industry. Players such as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Sania Mirza and many more are finding ways to make millions of rupees. They are getting outstanding deals to wear clothing during events, or do a commercial, or a photo shoot for and advertisement. New content distribution channels like the Web, email, voice messaging, streaming video and mobile are creating many new opportunities and challenges for sports marketers who formerly found newspapers, daily/weekly magazines and television as a channel for promotion. Due to growth of the industry and to support the demands for employees numerous institutions have opened up Sports Marketing as a subject. All in all with passing times, the demand of a sports marketing firm has become extremely high.

Upcoming Sports Stars of India

The Need For A Sports Marketing Company.