SIBM Sports Conclave '08

Sports Conclave is a venture of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management and the Corporate Interface Team towards celebrating and showcasing the changing face of Sport in India. A first attempt of its kind in a business school, it aims at bringing to the fore the business aspect of Sport.

With Abhinav Bindra writing history by winning an Olympic Gold, tremendous success of DLF Indian Premier League, Formula One entering India and India hosting Common Wealth Games, the face of Indian Sport is changing. Gen X sports namely Formula1, Tennis & Football are at the forefront of this change.

Sports have come of age in India and in the current decade have moved into the entertainment mainstream along with movies and TV soaps. Also the stakeholders of Sports have all undergone a sea change with professionalism and corporatization ruling the roost. Corporates are more forthcoming in sponsoring sporting events & teams. The transformation is evident with leading business houses setting up dedicated teams to spot opportunities in the sporting landscape.

To involve the students of SIBM, Y’ou’r Eleven Contest was organized. To enable the students experience the IPL bidding process, Y’ou’r Eleven was played with the students selecting their teams under a number of constraints. Participants had to select a team of eleven cricket players with five batsmen, five bowlers and a wicket keeper. An array of 18 batsmen, 18 bowlers and 6 wicket keepers from six countries was given to participants for selection. The sportsmen were ranked based upon their past performances and accordingly awarded points. The participants only had fixed points that they could use to choose players. There were certain constraints put on the selection process like only a maximum of three players could be from a country; if a student selected a player which has been chosen

Sports Conclave was ceremoniously inaugurated by our beloved Padamshree Dr. Mujumdar, Founder and Chancellor SIU; Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar, Principal Director, Symbiosis Society; Dr. Raste, Vice Chancellor, SIU; Dr. Arun Mudbidri, Director, SIBM and Mr. Vikram Sakhuja, COO Group M.
	Mr. Vikram Sakhuja, COO GroupM , our Keynote Speaker, told us about how sports marketing is used to build brands. The students learned about the ope of different media in reaching out to the selected audience. Giving examples from the stints with Procter & Gamble and Coca Cola India, Mr. Sakhuja drove home the point well.
Our Keynote Speaker, Mr. Manish Porwal, CEO Percept Talent Management explained about the Branding and Merchandising Strategy deployed during IPL. The interactgive session interspersed with humor made the students well versed with the IPL branding ideation.

Subsequent to the delightful and much-liked sessions, we had a conclave of personalities from Sport arena enter into a panel discussion and debate on the various issues surrounding Indian Premier League.
The members were-
1. Mr. Ajay Jadeja, Leading cricket analyst & Former Indian cricket team captain
2. Mr. Charu Sharma, Leading cricket commentator & Administrator
3. Mr. Vijay Bharadwaj, Head, Research & Consultancy, SPORT 18
4. Ms. Latika Khaneja, Director, Collage Sports Management

Moderator - Mr. Prakash Wakankar, CEO Eco Care, Sports Broadcasting & presenter

The discussion on ‘IPL – Demystified’ started with the moderator Mr. Prakash Wakankar iterating the fact that the topic was vast and hence the questions posed to the panelists by the students would determine the flow of the discussion. The students asked interesting questions which led the debate on matters such as the relevance of IPL, the success of 20/20 Vs the orthodox test cricket series and the business of cricket.

The panelists gave further insight into the other aspects such as marketing and brand endorsement. Mr. Charu Sharma shared interesting anecdotes and comments about IPL from an insider’s perspective. Mr Ajay Jadeja shared his experiences as a cricketer and stressed on the fact that a smaller version would be the next big thing in cricket. Ms. Latika Khaneja also provided valuable inputs about management of sports and sport personalities. Mr.Vijay Bhardwaj’s insights into ICL provided another dimension to the discussion. The session probed into areas like the changing face of sports in the country especially cricket and the dynamics of cricket. It concluded with the understanding that change is a necessary element of life and the popularity and success of IPL only proved how people are demanding a new and challenging aspect of cricket and though the basics are still the same – of scoring maximum runs for the batsmen and taking maximum wickets for the bowlers – in today’s scenario the amalgamation of business and sports is a challenging field which is here to stay. IPL in its current form is still in its budding stage and needs some thought and structure to be able to maintain its popularity and business viability.

A Special Address by Mr. T.A. Ramalingam, Head, Underwriting, Bajaj Allianz explained to the students about the insurance business of Sports. He explained the insurance scenario in India today, where the sport events are insured. The Indian scenario hasn’t reached a stage wherein the individual players are insured like David Beckham and Ronaldo.

Another interesting panel discussion on ‘Hunt for next Big Sport of India’ followed. The esteemed members were-

Mr. Novy Kapadia, Football Expert
Mr. Vijay Bharadwaj, Head, Research & Consultancy, SPORT 18
Mr. Kunal Shah, Sports Manager,Percept Talent Management
Dr. Kannan Pugazandi, Leading Sport Physician
Ms. Latika Khaneja, Director, Collage Sports Management

The panel explored the emerging sports. Mr. Novy Kapadia gave anecdotes from the football arena and presented his view on how football, a popular sport in the world, could be propagated in India. Kunal, a Formula One enthusiast, proposed his view of how Formula One would be the sport to watch out for in the next five years. Mr. Vijay Bharadwaj presented the point that the bottomline for any sport being popular is purely dependent on the economic viability that the corporate see in it. If marketed properly, India could soon be hosting Kabaddi Premier League!