MEDIA MATTERS IV
S(up)porting business
You won’t believe it. Let me spill the beans, nevertheless. I sat glued to the television set on a wintry January afternoon watching the Sri Lanka versus India 50-overs cricket match being played in Mirpur, Bangladesh. Nothing unusual for an Indian, where cricket is like religion. Except for channel surfing during commercial breaks, I was fixated with the proceedings of the match that ended in India’s favour – naturally much to my jubilation like any other Indian – from start to finish. I knew the ball-by-ball action of the tussle between the two pairs of playing eleven from across the Palk Strait. Yet twelve hours later, when the delivery boy dropped my quota of dailies at my doorstep, I picked them and quietly moved into the washroom – the best place to read anything undisturbed. Disappointment was in store when no news related to the previous night engagement merited page-one coverage. No doubt, adequate coverage was there in the sports section.
I knew the outcome of the match already. I knew the development ball-by-ball since I had watched the full length cricket match lasting more than seven hours the previous day. There was no necessity to read newspaper reportage of the same event. Still, the thrill of reading about the engagement between the sporting rivals and former World Cup champions has not vanished. The turn of phrase! The analysis! The prose! How the match has been covered by scribes in this age of instant gratification through live telecasts, live blogging and the 140-character Twitter era is what drove me to relive – yes, relive – the match proceedings.
No doubt, one has heard the expert opinion of past ‘greats’ on the idiot box. Yet, we all read the opinions and views of domain experts: Sunil Gavaskar, Anil Kumble, Ian Chappell, Paes Leander, Mahesh Bhupathi, Milkha Singh in the sports section of dailies in many Indian languages. Sports syndication is a big business due to the demand for such info-sharing.
Cricket continues to dominate the Indian mindset when it comes to sports. No wonder, the sports coverage in Indian dailies is phenomenal – nothing less than three pages – in English and vernacular. Front page coverage of cricket-related news is nothing unusual, due to the mass following.
Besides cricket, other sports that manage to gain space are tennis, golf at the high end and hockey, football, athletics at the other end. Of late, due to Indians winning medals at global sports meets, other sports such as archery, boxing, weight lifting also began to demand space in dailies. Interestingly, most of the shining stars in the Indian sports arena happen to come from non-urban centres thus creating a huge curiosity value for readers as well.
With television capturing the live events, dailies dally in profiling, interviewing and trying to bring in a slice of life portraiture of sports personalities. Sensing the higher readership of dailies during major events – One Day Internationals of fifty overs each (cricket), 20-20 matches (cricket) and 5-day test matches (cricket), the Olympic Games (once in four years), Davis Cup (tennis), World Cup (hockey), where India used to rule the roost, etc, dailies go the whole hog by devoting more pages. There is a lot of money to be garnered through sponsorship advertisements, etc.
Many sports personalities drawn from various disciplines are also brand ambassadors for renowned brands of products and services in India. Naturally, when their brand ambassadors participate or shine, advertisements are bound to surface in the dailies. If you are a successful sportsperson, you cannot escape being a celebrity and as a corollary endorsing one brand or another. Money, money and money!
Over the last few years, particularly due to Ten Sports, Star Sports and ESPN TV channels, there is a growing interest in European football championship – primarily targeted at English-speaking, upmarket youthful audience. Hence, it is but natural for newspapers to devote a sizeable chunk of space in the sports section to live and non-live European football championships. Of course, there are football championship-related Indian brand sponsorships as well.
Golf, an expensive game, also has avid followers in India. Lot of Indians have made a name for themselves. Again, golf is being played across the globe round the calendar year. Golf attracts big brand sponsorship and dailies do not miss out the chance to ride on this as well.
It is a fact that every English daily worth its name never hesitates to send at least one correspondent to cover big events where India is a participant - be it cricket, tennis, golf, football, hockey, the Olympics, etc. Result: wide coverage and lot of advertising revenue. Who wants to miss out?
Yes, India is a sports-crazy nation. Until now, cricket is the mega money spinner. More number of Indians are emerging on the global tennis arena. Chess is another big ticket for Indians (However, chess does not attract advertising support). The followers of these disciplines are growing. So, a big potential to be tapped over the years!
Several European nations have daily newspapers focused on sports. Obviously, the focus is on football. Even in the US, in the 1990s, there was a sports daily called The National. But it folded up in less than a year due to poor response. The Mexican owner thought of replicating the Mexican and European success stories, but failed. Matt Kelly, the digital content director of Trinity Mirror’s national newspaper division, admits that publishers use sports news to optimise revenues. A recent conference held in Paris by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) witnessed Nicola Speroni of Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport revealing how his sports daily evolved from an old style, traditional newspaper into a multimedia brand for sports ‘infotainment’.
How about a dedicated sports daily in India? Is it feasible economically? Will people love to endorse a niche sports newspaper on a daily basis? “There is too much of sports in the local newspapers already. Who has the time to go through a full newspaper on sports everyday,” asks Mumbai-based Surajit Agarwal. “Cricket daily may have readership on a daily basis. But no chance for a sports daily,” adds Muscat-based journalist Kishor Cariappa. The last word comes from India’s renowned sports columnist Ayaz Memon: “I am inclined to believe that it would be a good proposition. Huge change happening in the mindset and lifestyle which will shape this,” and hastens to add, “I would love to do it.”
Gerard van der Weijden, speaking at the World Newspapers Congress held in Hyderabad November last year, maintained that newspapers can win youth through sports and cited several instances from across the globe and in India also. For instance, the PACE (Partnerships for Action in Education) initiative of Hindustan Times (India) offers yoga in schools to help students achieve holistic well-being thus improve the physical strength, flexibility and stamina required for sports. The Deccan Chronicle of India bought the DC Chargers cricket team in 2008. The plethora of resulting activities include a major, televised T-20 inter-school national challenge sports quiz competition.
All said and done, sports is no longer a pastime. It demands full time preoccupation. Besides, it is a big business with huge dollops of money. Publishing is a business too. Money attracts money. In the process of promoting sports – personality, health and pride – through their pages, publishers also make money, there is nothing to be sneered at. Be healthy and be sporty.
(Ramesh Kumar is a journalist, with more than 25 years exposure to the world of print, radio, television and web in India and abroad as well. Send in your feedback to [email protected])
