Bridging the gap in Indian sports | Shuvro Ghoshal | TEDxHITKolkata
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDPceJ7kBcA Video ID: WDPceJ7kBcA ============================================================ let me start off by asking a very difficult question who is the captain of the Indian cricket team so this is Rohit Sharma right so he is the captain of the Indian cricket team so this is not Rohit Sharma okay so what is his name right so we are aware of the difference between vat kohi and Rohit Sharma as far as their features are concerned or their achievements as a cricketer now let me ask you guys a very simple question who is the fastest runner in India right now are we aware of it it's okay let me ask you another question who is the highest ranked badminton player right now the male badminton player so we do not have answers for that as well so the person we are seeing on the left hand side of the screen is amlan Boren he's from Asam and he ran 100 m in 10.25 seconds the person on the right hand side of the screen is HS pronoy he is the only Indian right now in the top 10 world rankings the global world rankings of badminton I am here to give you guys a few reality checks so please be with me I'm Shu goosal founder of the bridge and I with my team bridge the gap in Indian Sports through media and Technology by giving a platform to lesser known Sports and sports persons we are all aware right that Cricket is the most followed sport in the country as in all of us we prefer to eat sleep and breathe cricket and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it because the sport of cricket in our country enjoys massive viewership and Commercial Success not disputing Cricket's popularity I firmly believe that it's very important to acknowledge and nurture other sports as well but is it really possible do people in our country care about other sports let me give you guys an example I'll take you guys back to 2016 can we guess where exactly is this picture from any guesses guys Kashmir so it's close to Kashmir this photo is from Le it's in ladak and the pond which you can see it's called Guk so I happen to spend so this photo by the way was clicked sometime in the month of March I spent some three months in ladak three months prior to clicking this photo I clicked one more photo and I'll show you guys that photo right now so can you guys see any similarity between the first one and the second one this one and the next one the mountains are there which is the Himalayas you can see uh a pond is there and something is there in the first photo there you you can't find anyone as in there is just a pond and in the next photo you can see a few people doing something so both photos are exactly similar just click three months one in the month month of January the other in the month of March in ladak during the harsh Winters when temperature Falls to- 25 -30° C at night the water freezes and it turns into a frozen pond so you can call it a pond or a lake and that's when a group of people a group of men group of women they train in this ice and that's the infrastructure we have for this sport of ice hockey now when we hear about ice hocky we immediately I'm sure we think about USA or we think about Canada or the Scandinavian countries which has a rich culture of this port but India also has this infrastructure which is natural so let's be okay with it back in 2016 these girls were invited to play a second tier Asian level competition and mind you this is the Indian national team they were invited to participate in the challenge cup of Asia which was held in Thailand back then the team needed funds for obvious reasons as in when you go to uh some competition to play you need a lot of money right you need the registration fees you need uh the equipment cost you need travel fees you need accommodation all of that so the ask for this team was around 32 lakhs back then I did a documentary and I started a crowdfunding campaign after that in a matter of 9ine days I raised 32 lakhs for these group of girls and after that this team went on to participate in the challenge cup of Asia the story doesn't end here so you can see girls on both sides of the screen so after getting those funds they went there to participate they ended up beating Philippines in their first ever match and that was India's first International Ice Hockey win which became vital back then and was picked up by a lot of people namely Justin trudo picked that up and a lot of uh media Outlets obviously back home in India as well as the BBC Al jazer and all the other International media Outlets after that this team went on to defeat Malaysia soon after a couple of games but why am I telling you guys this story it's obviously because of the impact but who exactly came forward people like us some 9,000 people came forward to raise that money and people donated as little as 100 rupes 500 rupes th000 rupees so people cared for the sport or for that matter cared for let's say the Indian national team let me tell you guys similar to how let's say we look at the World Cup right we look at the Cricket World Cup is kind of how we measure the success of international team as in we follow that foure cycle and based on how the team is performing we kind of say we have the World Cup as well coming up very soon I'm equally excited as you guys I'm really hoping India ends up winning but uh similar to uh Cricket World Cup the Olympics is considered as the biggest sporting event and Cricket World with no offense to Cricket the world cup doesn't come near Olympics as far as the scale is concerned it's the biggest sporting spectacle in the world it happens obviously I'm sure a lot of you guys know that it happens once in four years and every country in the world they take the Olympics very very seriously and even we we also take uh uh the games very seriously but it's important for you guys to understand and let's compare with a few other countries that where exactly we stand and after that we can look at what exactly we can do to improve so you can look at a country like USA so the Olympics has been happening for a little over 100 years now USA for example has gone on to win almost 2,000 more than 2,000 2,600 something medals we look at a country like Great Britain UK has ended up winning close to thousand medals we look at China China has gone on to win more than 500 medals and when we look at India we have won a total of 35 medals so far having said that out of those 35 the last 15 medals I'm sorry the 15 medals has come from the last three Olympics in 2012 at London we ended up winning six medals in 2016 at Rio we ended up winning just two medals and in 2020 in Tokyo we ended up winning seven medals I'm sure a lot of you guys follow Tokyo because of n Chopra I'm sure you guys know n Chopra uh by now so a total of 15 medals out of 35 medals came in the last 10 years or so so 35 definitely I believe is not a great number as far as our uh standing is concerned and if we look at the industry I think the next question for us immediately would be that why are we not performing because there is budget which is allocated every year right but apart from that let me just give you some data points to understand where exactly is the spending going last year in 202 22 the total spending in the sports industry was 14,000 crores it's it was not 140 crores it was not, 1400 crores it was 14,000 crores and out of those 14,000 crores 85% went to Cricket 15% was Kept For AD Sports and not just 15% out of this 15% it included sports like kudy which is not an Olympic sport it included sports like football obviously and it also included marathons now you guys might be shocked that only 15% but another reality check for you guys this is the highest we have spent in the last couple of decades but we have to understand what is the spending which is required for us to actually do well at a global level I'll compare ourselves with UK in the year 2016 this data is from 2016 UK ended up winning 67 medals compared to two medals which we won we did not have a great year but still we ended up winning two medals so kudos to the athletes UK we spent one3 of the budget which was Kept For UK but research suggested after the games in order to win One Medal a country should spend we can take the case of uh Great Britain here that Great Britain ended up spending 5.5 million pounds that will be close to 50 crores so that is the money and the effort including everything infrastructure is needed to win an Olympic medal so you understand understand the value and the importance obviously the significance of it do we think we should do something about it or should we just uh accept and move on and uh should we blame someone let's let's think about it uh for a few seconds I think we'll have the answer as in if you think very deeply we'll have the answer that we all of us are the culprits how many channels are giving prime time slots to sports how many of us in this Auditorium follow sportspersons I very firmly believe that in order to make India a global sporting nation everyone has to come together it has to be a collective effort see Olympics comes once in four years and we need to start celebrating this athletes on a regular basis because if we wait for the Olympics we'll have very few reasons to celebrate the athletes need support throughout the year and that is only possible when we start following Sports on a regular basis the change in sports ecosystem has to start with a change in you we look at see India is we are a country of a billion people right as there is absolutely no reason why we cannot identify and then train and the right Talent as in after a long long time I feel that Indian Sports is seeing good days ahead and it has been staffed for a the that that success has been starved we have been starved of that success for a very long time the signs definitely look positive thank you