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DESI SLAM DUNK
After
cricket, which is India’s most popular game? It isn’t hockey anymore, not
after the decline of the sport over the past couple of decades. Football’s
popularity is rising but more because audiences are getting a taste of the best
of the beautiful game globally and not because India is moving anywhere up
the rankings.
Against such a backdrop, when an Indian-American
moneybags who co-owns a basketball team in the hallowed National Basketball
Association (NBA) declares that he would like basketball to become India’s
No. 2 sport of choice, it doesn’t sound that unreasonable. Vivek Ranadive,
a Silicon Valley IT millionaire, who bought Sacramento Kings a year ago
along with a group of investors, has set his sights on the growing fan and
player base of the game in India and other Asian markets.
Mumbai-born Ranadive — who earlier this week was
nominated for Street & Smith’s Sports Executive of the Year award back
in the US — believes that having proved their mettle in technology in the
US, Indian-American infotech entrepreneurs should now set the ball rolling
in sports and entertainment. “I’m a huge sports fan and firmly believe that
basketball will be the game of this century since it has great appeal with
the spectators,” Ranadive had told ET Magazine in an earlier interview.
Like most Indian-Americans of his generation, 55-year-old Ranadive is a big
cricket fan and had never really played basketball — till he had to coach
his daughter Anjali and her basketball team of 12-year-old girls for the National
Junior Basketball championship or America’s Little League some years ago.
Mission India
“I see a great deal of interest in the sport among young
Indian-Americans. Besides, Indians in India can also excel in basketball
considering that it’s a game that doesn’t require very large resources for
training. It’s a global sport and will provide the right brand value for
India to take a seat at the world table,” Ranadive said.
Backing him in his India foray is the NBA, the top
professional basketball league of North America to which Sacramento Kings
belongs. NBA, which has over $5.5 billion in annual revenues and 30
franchised member clubs in North America, is now looking at India as its
next big market.
“Our plan is to increase participation among youth.
Basketball is simple to play, requires very little space and
infrastructure, and is played by both boys and girls. Also, the format of
the game makes it fun and exciting to watch,” says Yannick Colaco, MD, NBA
India, which has had operations for four years and recently increased
activities at the grassroots to build the NBA brand in the country.
While NBA India is focused on expanding access to
NBA games in America through TV, digital and social media, more than 500
local events have also been held in different cities across the country.
“We have a television partnership with Sony SIX and our social media
following has grown almost 500% over the past two seasons, with India now
the No. 5 country following the NBA on Twitter outside the US,” Colaco
adds. At the grassroots, NBA India runs Reliance Foundation Jr NBA, which
works with schools in spurring kids to play, and NBA Jam, a multicity,
college-centric, entertainment event centred around basketball. In the
first year, Reliance Foundation Jr NBA has engaged with over 140,000
children and trained 300 physical education teachers, across 220 partner
schools in Mumbai and Kerala.
Ranadive Assist
NBA India is also hoping to cash in on the fact that Ranadive and
Sacramento Kings are looking at opportunities in India. “It’s great to have
Mr Ranadive become the principal owner of the Kings. He has been aggressive
in building the best possible team for the Sacramento community and has
also talked about the fantastic opportunity for the game here in India. We
look forward to continuing working with him and the Kings to grow the
league and the game,” Colaco says.
It’s not surprising that India is on the radar of
the Kings and its chairman Ranadive in a big way. After taking over the
Kings in May last year, Ranadive had spoken about his team “helping make
basketball a household word in India”, in an interview with the Sacramento
Bee. The team’s last season opener was broadcast live in India. “It was a
huge hit. While cricket will be No. 1 in the hearts of Indian fans,
basketball can become a strong No. 2,” he added in the interview to
Sacramento Bee.
This year the team management is looking at a
bigger engagement with India. “We will partner with NBA India and even
though playing an actual game in India may not happen very soon, we’re
finalizing a visit of Mr Ranadive along with the NBA commissioner Adam
Silver to India in the next few months,” Chris Granger, president of
Sacramento Kings told ET Magazine on phone from Sacramento. He feels that
the strong partnership between NBA India and the Indian-American owner of
the team will definitely help the outreach in the country.
“The Indian connection is very strong and last
season there were 22 of our matches that were broadcast in India. We have
also built up a strong connect with the techie Indian community in Silicon
Valley not only because of Mr Ranadive’s Indian roots but also through some
of our innovative hi-tech marketing tie-ups such as with Google Glass,” he
added. Besides Ranadive, another Indian American Raj Bhathal, founder of
Raj Manufacturing, one of the largest swimwear companies in the US, is also
an investor in the consortium which bought the majority stake in Kings in
May 2013.
Taco Time
Meanwhile, as part of Ranadive’s new business philosophy, which focuses
on investments in technology, globalization and community partnerships for
the Kings, the team has entered into a long-term sponsorship deal with
Jimboy’s Tacos, a Mexican fast food restaurant chain and Krrish Group, a
Gurgaon-based real estate player and liquor manufacturing company. Krrish
Group is the owner of Krrish Delhi Smashers, the Delhi franchise in the
inaugural Indian Badminton League.
To start with, the Krrish Group, as master
franchisee of Jimboy’s Tacos, will launch the chain in India this year. “We
recognize the immense potential of F&B and sports in India. With our
partnership with the Sacramento Kings, we would like to combine restaurants
and sports and come up with unique concepts which will not only have mass
appeal but great utility as well,” says Prakhar Gupta, vice-president,
business development, Krrish Group. The first Jimboy’s outlet is likely to
open in the NCR by September 2014 and in the next two years 7-10 are
planned across India.
Not surprisingly basketball will be a major theme
in these outlets. Jimboy’s Tacos also hopes to leverage its relationship
with Sacramento Kings for growing business in India. “It has been very
positive for us being associated with the Sacramento Kings, and it is a great
marketing and business relationship. We are sure it will be the same here
in India,” says Michael Freeman, director, marketing and business
development, Jimboy’s North America.
The ownership of a basketball team by an
Indian-American opens up a lot of opportunities for the game in the
country. “With an Indian owner, Sacramento Kings could definitely become a
favourite team of basketball fans here, and there’s already a lot of
interest in NBA games on TV,” says sports writer and blogger Karan Madhok.
According to Twitter statistics, NBA has a fan
following of half a million in India, with serious efforts being made by
NBA to further increase the league’s fan base here. Basketball TV
viewership too has been growing in India, with 23 million viewers having
sampled NBA content in the first 11 weeks of the current season, 8 million
of whom were women viewers, as per data from Sony SIX.
Youth Factor
The fact that NBA, one of the world’s richest sports leagues, is
ramping up operations in India has also led to a rise in interest in the
sport among broadcasters and private sector players. “Basketball is one of
the two sports, the other being football, that IMG-Reliance [a joint
venture that is investing is sports properties in India] has adopted in India
having signed a 30-year deal with BFI [Basketball Federation of India] in
2010 for commercial rights of the sport. This could translate into an
IPL-style professional league and help grassroots-level development of the
sport,” says Jaideep Ghosh, partner, KPMG India, a consultancy.
BFI, the official controlling body of the game in
the country, too is upbeat about the opportunities and the interest that
NBA is showing in growing Indian basketball. “Basketball is the second
largest sport in the world behind football. There is a lot of outside
interest in how the game develops in India,” says a BFI spokesperson.
Amongst many others watching keenly is the chairman of the Sacremento
Kings.
•
RANADIVE ON A ROLL NOVEMBER 2010
Ranadive becomes the first
Indian to co-own an NBA team in the US — he is a part of a consortium to
buy Californiabased Golden State Warriors
APRIL 2013
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wants to buy Sacramento Kings and
move it to Seattle. Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson approaches Ranadive, who
leads a group of investors to outbid Ballmer, paying over $500 million
Ranadive plans to transform the franchise into a global brand and
extend the NBA’s reach into China and India
OCTOBER 2013
Sacramento Kings launches a section on the team’s website dedicated to
a rapidly growing Hindi-speaking fan base
DECEMBER 2013
Ranadive launches his vision statement NBA 3.0. He hopes to
revolutionize entertainment and the NBA and sees his team as the poster
child for the use of big data in the game
…AND RIDING WITH THE KINGS
Jimboy’s Tacos, a Mexican fast
food company in the US and the long-term sponsor of Sacramento Kings, has
tied up with real estate player Krrish Group to bring Jimboy’s Tacos brand
to India
Under the agreement, along with Jimboy’s Tacos Krrish has become a joint
sponsor of Sacramento Kings,
and the first Indian business house to invest in the NBA
JAMMING WITH THE NBA…
NBA and Sony SIX have partnered
to launch NBA Jam in India, the largest college basketball and entertainment
festival in the country
The 2013 NBA Jam travelled to Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai
Over 1,000 teams registered to be part of the event in 2013 with 500 teams
receiving the chance to participate in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament
In October 2013, the Reliance Foundation and NBA announced a multi-year
partnership to launch a school-based youth basketball programme in India
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