We are not far away from a time when every sports franchise in India will have its own e-sports team: Sporjo Founder and CEO G Srinivvasan

In March, a report released by GroupM ESP stated that the Indian sports industry’s spending had surpassed the ₹9500-crore mark in 2021.

The report, which took into account sponsorship deals, player endorsements and media spending on sports properties, only accentuated the burgeoning status of the country’s sports industry, which will soon exceed all expectations in terms of generating revenue and employment.

No wonder scores of young people today aspire to enter the sports industry, often lured by its glamor but unequipped to deal with the challenges it may entail, especially in the post-pandemic era.

In a bid to bridge the gap between passion for sports and acquiring the know-how to work in the industry, former IMG Reliance Group Marketing & Strategy head G Srinivvasan launched an education, training and employment-oriented online company called Sporjo in May 2020.

Having closely observed the unprecedented expansion of India’s sports economy and the problems facing it over the past couple of decades, Mr. Srinivvasan knows that being merely passionate about sports is not enough to forge a successful career in the industry. One needs to marry passion with two other Ps – personality and proficiency – to solve problems and meet employer expectations.

Hence, Mr. Srinivvasan calls Sporjo a (SEED) tech company, one that combines the tenets of sports education, employment and ecosystem development rather than focusing on a singular aspect.

Recently, Sporjo conducted Hack for Sport, India’s first sports ecosystem and gaming hackathon aimed at accelerating growth in the sports industry. The event, held between April 1 and June 19, received as many as 4,500 registrations from over 750 colleges and 15 early stage start-ups from across 40 cities in India.

The participants, mostly students and young professionals, solved problem statements in 14 segments of the sports industry and went through a five-stage selection process before the 13 finalists submitted their demos for review by a jury of organizers and experts.

The top three sports entrepreneurial ideas walked away with a cash prize of ₹10 lakh along with access to Sporjo’s curated community of business and growth specialists from both within and outside the Indian sports industry. The organizers view the event as a step towards Sporjo’s mission to train half a million sports professionals by 2030.

Shortly after the conclusion of the hackathon, Sportskeeda caught up with Mr. Srinivvasan for an exclusive chat wherein he spoke at length about the impact of the event, the industry roadblocks and Sporjo’s long-term goals.

A sports industry stalwart who has previously worked on two of India’s hottest sports properties, namely the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the Indian Super League (ISL), Mr. Srinivvasan also shared a story about the launch of the ISL and sounded bullish about the future of the e-sports market.

Here are excerpts from the conversation.

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Q: Could you give us your assessment of the impact of the recently concluded hackathon?

Srinivvasan: Let’s look at the impact step by step. The first step was to give these people a platform because no such event existed in India before. Earlier, we didn't have a full-fledged sports ecosystem that could provide solutions to the problems currently facing the Indian sports industry. We received 4,500 entries and 13 finalists came to Goa. We heard all of them, and there were two incubation partners [Thinqbate and AIC-GIM].

As far as the impact is concerned, the work begins now. We’ll take these ideas to our incubation partners and then work with them to see which of these ideas can be taken forward depending on the finalists’ bandwidth, approach, the funding they can get, et cetera. Both incubators are keen on giving all thirteen finalists a platform so that they can start incubating their ideas. We’ll continue to work with them to see how many ideas can see the light of the day.

Q: As the old proverb goes, “Necessity is the mother of all invention.” What, according to you, are some of the major problems facing the Indian sports industry today?

Srinivvasan: I think there are more problems than solutions at the moment (laughs). Apart from cricket, no other sport in India makes a profit. Most of the participants were either students or early stage start-ups. Now what if they have some great ideas, but don’t have the experience to create transactions, business plans, et cetera? That’s where we as incubators step in to guide them on building businesses, legal compliance and fundraising, so that they can have some money to move forward.

There are a lot of problems in the sports industry. It’s about how you conceive the solutions and look to scale them in a realistic and practical manner. Many of the ideas were combinations of sports and tech.

Unlike the West, we don’t use tech as much. The convergence of sports and tech ensures that these ideas are at least fast-tracked. Tech ensures scalability and also that the ideas conform to modern times as everyone has a smartphone these days. You use tech to determine almost everything, from athlete performance to fan engagement.

Q: What are some of the best ideas that caught your attention?

Srinivvasan: The event wasn’t about choosing the best ideas out of the 13. There were winners and losers, as in all sports, but they were the 13 finalists chosen from 4,500 entries. That was the most important thing.

All 13 ideas were brilliant and hence, they made it to the final. There were multiple parameters on which they were judged such as scalability, adaptability, ease of use and practicality.

Take the product called IRIS as an example. It deals with the very simple idea of using Google motion to track athlete performance. The developers [Team Idli Sambhar] were focused on professional athletes, but we felt that the idea would be a lot more scalable if it were applied to amateur athletes. For example, if you’re playing badminton with your friends and feel that your smash is not okay, you could use IRIS to enhance your performance.

The market is small for professional players, but it increases up to ten times for amateur players. The product is so simple that it can be used by anyone at any point in time. The ease of application of these ideas is what caught my eye.

Q: Since you’re talking about amateur players using the product, one can assume that its focus is on inclusivity. The price has to be really affordable then…

Srinivvasan: One of the main reasons why IRIS won the event is because it’s not an elitist product. Scalability happens only when a product is made for the masses, right? We feel that their product is indeed for the masses. In our opinion, IRIS’ target customers are amateur players, which means it’s for the masses, so the cost per unit will automatically go down.

Q: You were part of the team that conceived the idea of the ISL. Could you sell the entire advertising inventory in the first season?

Srinivvasan: In the first year, we could only sell 60 percent of the inventory, but we sold the entire inventory the following season. Again, the revenue stream was slightly limited and it was more about selling sponsorships. Everything, including online, on-air and on-ground, was bundled together.

Before we used this strategy, it wasn’t used in any other sport. I think it was a success as the advertisers saw an opportunity to cover their entire demographics with just one sponsorship. In cricket, on the other hand, you’ve to buy everything separately. I think this was the USP of the ISL in its initial few years from a commercial point of view.

Q: Before the advent of the ISL, the quality of football broadcast in India was very poor. Launching a tournament of that magnitude would have been a big gamble. Talk us through some of the challenges your team encountered while planning the ISL.

Srinivvasan: We were very confident about the ISL. The idea was to introduce a new product that would uphold the slogan, Come on, India. Let’s football!

Now how do you package the entire product and increase the demographics to bring in not just football fans, but also a lot of trendsetters? That’s why we used a lot of celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar from cricket, and Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham from Bollywood to ensure that their fans would come and watch football. The Reliance-IMG-Star joint venture, which launched the ISL, reached out to them.

Q: How do you evaluate the ISL’s progress over the past eight years? Many former players have called it a "million-dollar circus" as India continue to struggle at the international level despite the huge influx of money…

Srinivvasan: A while back, you used the word "inclusivity", right? The ISL was planned with the objective of involving people from various spheres in Indian football. I’ll take only one measure of success. Before the ISL started, India was ranked 172nd in the world, but now we’re ranked 104th. That doesn’t happen with a magic wand. There’s a lot of work that happens behind the scenes.

Q: Your company Sporjo aims to up-skill people pursuing careers in sports and develop employability in India’s sports ecosystem. Suppose I’m fresh out of college and want to pursue a career in sports management, but lack proper guidance. How can Sporjo help me find my dream job?

Srinivvasan: After working in the sports industry for 22 years, I used to get thousands of calls from people who wanted to work in sports, but were directionless. I had no answers at the time. Should they follow my path or read something and come back? It doesn’t work like that.

Your passion for sports is only thirty-three percent. Working as a sports management professional also depends on your personality and proficiency. Just knowing the statistics of Virat Kohli or Cristiano Ronaldo won’t get you a job in either cricket or football.

You need to know exactly what your job would entail. That’s why the employer hires you. Another thing is you also need the right person for the right job. Working in sales in the FMCG industry and working in operations in sports is not the same thing.

What we do at Sporjo is make sure that these questions are answered. In my 22 years in the industry, I’ve seen a massive gap between candidates and employers. We basically educate and train the candidates in the field we think they will be most successful in.

We determine that through an assessment and then look to place them. Companies don’t want to hire people for a job unless they have the required skillsets. We help them develop these skillsets. Unless you develop the ecosystem, there won’t be any jobs.

Q: Is it fair to say that Sporjo is the equivalent of LinkedIn for sports management aspirants?

Srinivvasan: It’s not just the equivalent of LinkedIn, but a combination of ed-tech, job portals, and a lot more. That’s why we call ourselves (SEED) tech. If we were purely an ed-tech company, we would take the money and tell you to find a job for yourself. We don’t do that here.

My experience has taught me that you need certain skillsets to excel in a particular field. You need to understand how the sports ecosystem works, and what you’re offering and what you’re being offered. Now who will teach you these things? That’s why we bring in experts who teach you value exchange rather than letting you learn everything on the job.

Q: e-sports is one of the fastest growing industries in India at the moment. What will be the scope for careers in e-sports going forward?

Srinivvasan: I think e-sports will be the next big thing in India. Every ISL franchise already has an e-sports team. We are not far away from a time when every sports franchise in India will have its own e-sports team.

Leagues and tournaments might last 30 days, but how do you connect with a completely new demographic and engage with them during the off-season? I think e-sports is the best way to do that. You’re not going to get new fans in a sport by just advertising the sport. A lot of people in India play video games and start following a team because they’ve played video games for that team. That’s the only way the audience base will grow and therefore, revenue will grow.