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If I were Allen Stanford, I would put my money on Disciplines that would yield results. What if I’m a private Investor and expect a return-on-investment? It takes years to build a generation of quality Athletes. So, if I were an Investor concerned with short term gains, the best bet is to invest in a Sport that already draws crowd. Helps in branding my products as well.
If I were a Maverick Investor, I would invest in the development of Team Sports that have taken a second seat in recent history. It is more like, i should work out ways to re-invent, re-package and re-deliver it to the audience. How lucrative is the model? Now, don’t talk about passion to me as it eventually ends up in “the figures” (as I’m playing the role of an Investor).
History says that Team sports evince maximum interest. Notable exceptions being Professional Tennis or a much celebrated media sport like the Professional Heavy weight boxing title?
Sports that test endurance, like Track & Field Athletics, Swimming, Wrestling, Weightlifting, Canoing, Cycling etc. won’t draw crowd but signal the sporting ability as a Nation. The whole concept of Olympics is team spirit and the collective joy of rooting for one’s Nation (by birth or naturalization). Hence individual performances are glorified under the banner of -one- nation and it reflects on the eventual Statistics called the final medals tally.
We have talented youngsters in a nation of one-billion (and counting). We have passionate Coaches as well. Somewhere, somehow we are failing to connect the dots and turn them in to memorable performance. Is it our Curriculum at School? Is it the lack of encouragement from the inner circle? Is it the financial reason? Is it the lack of diversity in Sports following? Is it the administrative hurdles that govern the Sporting bodies in the Country? Is it the dumb mainstream media that is so inclined on promoting Professional Sports with Corporate sponsorship?
Why do we dedicate more Columns to postmortem than focus on spotting potential talents?
Answer is…everybody shares the collective responsibility of failure of Sporting system in India. We are not a sporting nation yet and our priorities are forced to be different! It is very interesting that China (with a similar population and a close model of comparison) is able to achieve in many Disciplines. Something to think about.
After all said, now would you spare a thought for those involved in Paralympics?