Branding Indian athletes

It took India 28 years to better its 1982 Asian Games medal tally. In Guangzhou, Indian athletes’ outstanding performance fetched them 64 medals, including 14 gold medals — a performance which came close on the heels of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi where Indian athletes managed a handsome tally of 38 gold, 27 silver and 36 bronze medals for a second-place finish behind Australia and for the first time ahead of England.

In a yet-to-be sporting powerhouse nation like India, the medal winners will soon be forgotten. The hard work of many of these athletes indeed deserves better recognition as well as higher economic incentives. Under the current incentive system, the medal winners might get a small piece of government land, few minutes of television time and a tiny cash award from their respective state governments.

Corporates’ role

Successful athletes in other parts of the world become household names. Along with it comes economic incentive, popularity of the sport and much needed funding for the respective sports associations. This is made possible by large corporations who choose to honour athletes for their extraordinary abilities by running promotions on their products. Multinationals have so far shied away from this practice in India. There are a few American corporations with a large presence in India, who make unknown American sporting stars household names but fail to follow the same practice in India.

General Mills is well known for branding athletes and sports teams. Since 1934 it has been recognising outstanding athletes by publishing their pictures on its breakfast cereal, Wheaties, box to match its slogan — ‘The Breakfast of Champions’. This practice continues with the 2010 Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, winner of the NBA championship. But General Mills has failed to recognise Indian athletes.

Disney owns the sports network ESPN and many of the cartoon channels that are part of most cable services in India. But never does it send outstanding Indian athletes to its Disney property as does in the US.

Coca Cola and PepsiCo compete vigorously worldwide, including in India. Both companies have a very recognisable brandname and conduct sweepstakes before many major sporting events. These sweepstakes are intended to make their products popular as well as support athletes and sporting federations in the country of their operations. Kids and teenagers participate in these sweepstakes that make athletes and their accomplishments well known to them. Coca Cola or PepsiCo could conduct sweepstakes highlighting the past achievements of either Indian shooters or the Indian boxing contingent.

With their marketing expertise, American corporations could take the lead in branding champion Indian athletes. This will provide a fillip to athletes while allowing sports associations to raise sufficient resources to build the necessary world class infrastructure.

After back-to-back acclaimed performances, Indian sport is at a critical juncture. The Asian and Commonwealth Games have proven that Indian athletes have the talent, heart and determination to compete and win on the world stage. What they lack is necessary infrastructure to perform consistently and become the best in the world. In order to achieve this goal, the government alone cannot provide funding.
Indian sport needs backing from both multinational and Indian corporations to overcome the resource crunch and build upon the current success. Multinational corporations could implement best practices in supporting sports in India as they do in their home countries. Competitive forces along with societal pressures will ensure that Indian corporations follow suit. This will enable sports culture to seep into our youngsters, produce more gold medal winners and hasten the process of India becoming a sports nation.