IMG- Reliance looking at a Pro League for Indian basketball ??? - Mar 14, 2010 (by Anil Kumar)
Sports-marketing giant IMG Worldwide and Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd. have set up a joint venture to build a professional sports business in India, a deal that seeks to unlock the country's vast but undeveloped sports market.
The venture, expected to be announced Sunday in Mumbai, will look to develop professional soccer and basketball leagues in India, as well as nurture athletic talent by building sports academies throughout the country [read more]
Sports-marketing giant IMG Worldwide and Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd. have set up a joint venture to build a professional sports business in India, a deal that seeks to unlock the country's vast but undeveloped sports market.
The venture, expected to be announced Sunday in Mumbai, will look to develop professional soccer and basketball leagues in India, as well as nurture athletic talent by building sports academies throughout the country. The deal is the brainchild of a pair of colorful billionaires, IMG owner Ted Forstmann and Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani.
WORK AND PLAY: Sports marketer IMG Worldwide and Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, through a venture expected to be announced Sunday, hope to take Indian sports beyond cricket. Here, cricketer Herschelle Gibbs plays Friday in the Indian Premier League. While India has one of the world's fastest-growing economies and houses some of the most prestigious universities, its athletic prowess is underwhelming. Among large countries, India has perhaps the worst record of performance in international sports.
Since the inception of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, India has won just 20 medals, 11 of them in field hockey. (China, by comparison, won 100 medals at the Summer Olympics in 2008 alone; it won 28 in 1988.) India's men's soccer team is currently ranked 132nd on FIFA's world ranking list, out of 207 countries.
'If it works out the way we expect, this agreement will be transformational to IMG and beneficial to the people of India,' said Mr. Forstmann in an interview. A spokesman for Reliance declined to comment.
Industry experts see the Indian population as ripe for development in athletics. It has little in the way of a professional sports infrastructure, and nothing that approaches the professional level of basketball or soccer leagues that exist in other countries. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, Vijay Armritraj, an Indian tennis champion during the 1970s, said that Indians are at a disadvantage due to their typically small, slight builds. He also said the culture places a higher value on education than it does on sports.
'People always ask why there aren't more great athletes coming out of India,' Mr. Armritraj said. 'My answer is, you don't see a lot of great software engineers coming out of Spain.'
Mr. Forstmann, a veteran Wall Street deal maker who helped pioneer the private-equity business, acquired IMG in 2004. The closely held company is one of the world's largest producers and distributors of sports, managing thousands of sporting and entertainment events, from tennis's Wimbledon to New York City's Fashion Week. It also manages the careers of many athletes, including golfer Tiger Woods and tennis player Roger Federer.
The push into India comes on the heels of IMG's expansion into China. In 2008, IMG struck an exclusive 20-year deal with China's national television broadcaster that gave it the right to develop and market new sports events there.
The India deal pairs IMG with Reliance, India's largest private-sector company by market value. Reliance generates annual revenue of more than $28 billion, with business holdings varying from textiles to plastics to energy.
The real potential profits from the venture will come from the development of professional sports leagues. The IMG-Reliance venture will look to strike arrangements with India's soccer and basketball federations to help them build these leagues. Mr. Forstmann said the venture's ambitions are to create something akin to England's Premier League, for which IMG produces and distributes television programming.
'People might laugh at that now, but let's see where we are in five years,' said Mr. Forstmann, who said he became fast friends with Mr. Ambani after meeting him five years ago at a conference Mr. Forstmann hosts each year in Aspen, Colo.
IMG already has played a major role in one of India's major sports success stories — the development and operation of the Indian Premier League cricket venture, a wildly popular form of one of the world's most popular games. On Friday, Mr. Forstmann attended the opening match of the league's third season in Mumbai.
Developing athletic talent is a key component of the IMG-Reliance venture. IMG operates the IMG Academies in Bradenton, Fla., which educates and trains some of the best young athletes in the world in golf, tennis, baseball, soccer and basketball. That model will now be taken to India.
As it does in Florida, IMG will make scholarships available to the most promising athletes. Such investments can ultimately provide a windfall for IMG, which gains an inside track on representing the rising athletes who train at its academies. To jump start its talent development, Messrs. Forstmann and Ambani will award scholarships to between 20 and 30 Indian athletes and send them to IMG Academies in Florida this fall, where they will train with U.S. coaches.
IMG will also build out its business in India of managing talent, as well as the country's fashion and film celebrities. The agency already represents the young Indian tennis star, Yuki Bhambri, who is 17 years old and was the top-ranked junior player in the world last year. Ranked just 328th overall in the world among men, Mr. Bhambri has already garnered lucrative seven-figure endorsement deals and his image is plastered on billboards throughout India's largest cities.
Courtesy Peter Lattman and Matthew Futterman at Wall Street Journal
NBA announces tieup with Mahindra for a Schools League - Mar 11, 2010 (by Anil Kumar)
The Mahindra group and the US National Basketball Association (NBA) on Tuesday announced a partnership to set up a basketball league for
teenagers in India.
The Mahindra NBA Challenge League, meant to nurture players in the 14-18 age group, will start off in Bangalore, Ludhiana and Mumbai and will run for seven weeks every year. The league is being set up in collaboration with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) [read more]
The Mahindra group and the US National Basketball Association (NBA) on Tuesday announced a partnership to set up a basketball league for teenagers in India.
The Mahindra NBA Challenge League, meant to nurture players in the 14-18 age group, will start off in Bangalore, Ludhiana and Mumbai and will run for seven weeks every year. The league is being set up in collaboration with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI).
In a cricket-loving nation such as India, we feel it is important to encourage other sports as well and we believe basketball is perfectly suited to bring communities together and promote healthy active lifestyles to the Indian youth, said Anand Mahindra, vice-chairman and managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra.
The Mahindra NBA Challenge will provide basketball enthusiasts and newcomers to the game the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of the game and apply their skills in a fun, competitive environment, said Heidi Ueberroth, president, NBA International.
Over the years, M&M has encouraged various kinds of sports including owning the Mahindra United football club in Mumbai.
Mr Mahindra was unwilling to reveal the investment figure but said that a sizeable investment was being made. The association with NBA will also have a spill-over effect for M&Ms products and brand at a later stage, Mr Mahindra e said. M&M intends to make basketball the number 2 sport in India.
'The NBA is a wonderful brand. Not only does it combine the attributes that Mahindra brand stands forspeed, agility, endurance, staminabut it also stands for a sport that takes communities from a variety of section of societies. Its an inexpensive sport, it doesnt take much area to create, so you can galvanise the sport at a grassroot level and you can do that by giving youth a chance to build self esteem apart from their fitness,' said Mr Mahindra.
The BFI, Mahindra and NBA share a long term commitment to growing the game in India and to using the values of our game to make a positive, lasting impact in Indian communities, said David Stern, NBA, Commissioner. The NBA, founded in 1946 is a professional sports league and a global business that features 30 teams in the US and Canada. During the 2009-10 season, the NBA games will reach 215 countries and territories in 41 languages. Courtesy Economic times
IOB, SECR emerge champions - Mar 8, 2010 (by Anil Kumar)
Indian Overseas Bank, improving in every match since their first league match loss to Indian Army, gained sweet revenge right at the end, when they outplayed the Indian Army team 71-54 in the mens final to lift the glittering 26th UPL Ramu Memorial Trophy, sponsored by United Phorphorous Ltd. and earn a purse of Rs 1 lakh at the Indian Gymkhana, here, on Sunday [read more]
Indian Overseas Bank, improving in every match since their first league match loss to Indian Army, gained sweet revenge right at the end, when they outplayed the Indian Army team 71-54 in the mens final to lift the glittering 26th UPL Ramu Memorial Trophy, sponsored by United Phorphorous Ltd. and earn a purse of Rs 1 lakh at the Indian Gymkhana, here, on Sunday.
Earlier, in the womens final, South East Central Railway (SECR) ended the four-year domination of Southern Railway, handing them a 67-57 defeat to lay their hands on the Kapila Khandvala Shield, along with a purse of Rs 50,000.
Vishesh Bhraguvanshi of Western Railway emerged the highest scorer among men while among women it was Anitha A of SECR. The highest rebounder was Yadwinder Sngh, also from Western, while among the women it was Geethu Ana of Southern Rly. The best defenders were Jairam Jat of Indian Army and Bharti Netam of SECR among the men and women respectively.
Sunder Balakrishnan, representing title sponsors United Phosphorous gives away the prizes of all the winners.
Indian Army were done in by the Triple Towers of Indian Army, S Robinson, Vineeth Mathew and Mihir Pandey, all standing above 6ft 7 inches in height, who excelled in both attack as well as defence. Robinson was easily the standout among both teams, working hard in defence, shooting well from the pivot, assisting on the attack bord and generally exhorting his teammates to give their best. He ended up with the days high of 24 points, while Mathew got 18 and Pandey 13. In fact, such was the dominance of IOB that they had scored 12 points before Army opened their account. With Sambhaji Kadam a pale shadow of himself and Nixon failing to find his scoring touch, Army were always playing catch up.
The womens final saw SECR score over Southern thanks to their entire team pulling their weight. On the other hand, Southerns reliance on Anna Geethu to deliver the goods proved their undoing with the other players failing to rise to the occasion.
Scores (Final):
Mens: Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) 71 (S Robinson 24, Vineeth Mathew 18, Mihir Pandey 13, Sateesh S 8) bt Indian Army 54 (Sambhaji Kadam 10, Jairam Jat 10, Navdeep Yadav 10, S Subbaiah 9, P N Rajesh 9) (H T 34-28).
Womens: South East Central Railway (SECR) 77 (P Pushpa 21, A Aakansha 16, S Seema 15, Bharti Netam 12) bt Southern Railway 67 (Geetu Anna 19, Renjini P 15, Kokilla S 11, Anita Pauldurai 10) (H T 38-29).
Player of the Finals:
Mens: Aravind A (IOB)
Womens: Aakansha A (SECR) Player of the Tournament S Robinson (IOB) Pushpa (SEC Rly)
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