Google Deloitte report on Indian sport shines light on disconnect between fan base and performance

Are India’s Olympic sports and sports fans in Indian fans existing in the same universe or are they proving the multiverse hypothesis true? This question would bob up once in a while, shedding its existence in the sub-conscience, but it has assumed greater significance in the wake of a report released on Thursday. A bit of background would be in order. Deloitte and Google have come together to publish Think Sports: Unlocking India’s $130B Sports Potential, a research report analysing India’s evolving sports landscape. The study leverages Deloitte analysis, Google internal data, research, interviews and industry sources to review India’s sporting market and ecosystem and project its future.

A cursory glance at the Executive Summary will reveal the following highlights:

• India’s sports market is set to skyrocket to $130B by 2030
• India’s 655M vibrant and diverse sports fans are redefining the future of fandom 
• Strong Government push is accelerating India’s bold ambitions
• Investing in sports creates values across the ecosystem
• Technology, especially AI, is set to transform fan experiences, and sports marketing and management and 
• Sports is delivering sizable socio-economic impact through jobs, taxes and communities.

There can never be any doubt that the Central Government and many State Governments have realise the soft power of sport and are doing their bit to stoke and accelerate sporting ambitions of individuals in particular and society in general. There can be no question that sport – as a sunrise industry – creates values across the ecosystem and has significant socio-economic impact.

While India is still discovering ways in which Technology, especially Artificial Intelligence, transforms fan experience at venues, it is the revelation that  fans are ‘redefining’ the future of fandom (rather than spectating) that has piqued my interest the most. Perhaps they are not just redefining fandom but also the choice of sport that future generations would embrace and play.

It is important to spot that, barring Cricket and to a certain extent Hockey and Badminton, there appears to be a disconnect between what the 655 million sports fans in India consume and the performance of Indian teams and athletes on global stage. It probably also indicates that India is a sellers’ market with fans having to consume whatever is made available to them.

As per this report by Google and Deloitte, the sport with the largest fan base (aka the most followed on television and digital media) are Cricket (492M, Kabaddi (119M), Football (85M), Hockey (69M), Badminton (57M), Volleyball (40M) and Kho-Kho (26M).  And these sport have produced a total of 16 medals in the Olympic Games.

We can lower the bar just that bit and look at the top 10 sport in which Indians have won the most medals in Asian Games. These include Athletics (283 medals), Shooting (80), Wrestling (65), Boxing (61), Tennis (34), Rowing (28), Hockey (23), Sailing (23), Archery (19) and Squash (18). As can be seen only Hockey figures in this list from among the sport with the largest fan following.

The data offers insight into some problems that administrators of most, if not all, National Sports Federations administering Olympic sport in the country face. They are charged with the task of finding talent and nurturing it. They will have to find ways in which to keep their star performers in the limelight on digital media.

Yet, it is apparent that National Sports Federations must find ways to create products that will appeal to the Gen-Z fans, India's largest audience segment as per the Google-Deloitte report, besides enhancing their footprint on digital media. Only then will they be able to raise resources to run their sport and not dependent almost entirely on Government support for years to come. 

It is not as if the disconnect is evident only in the inadequate audience support for medal winning disciplines.  The converse is also true: Despite the large fan bases that their sport command in India, the National teams of Football and Volleyball, have not exactly set the Ganga on fire with their performances. 

At the moment, the Indian men’s football team is ranked 125 and the women’s team is 68. As for the rankings in volleyball, the men’s team is in the 70th slot and the women’s side is 59. These possibly indicate that it takes a lot more than just fan following for athletes and teams to perform well on international platforms. 

Curiously, the same lot of fans which spends time looking at other sport for entertainment through the year that demands performance and accountability from Olympic sport athletes. It is this conundrum that must engage sports sociologists, sports administrators and sports broadcasters around the country unless the goal is to feed a different game of skill through these sport.