Another trip…another great sporting experience. I went down to Mumbai these past few days to attend the India International Sports Summit hosted by Transstadia. Fortunately, Vanita’s company sent her to the summit as well so we got a mini holiday out of it. The objective was to discuss ways to grow the sporting landscape in India. There were about 500 attendees made up of government officials, marketers, NGO heads, club admin staff and sports legends.
Overall, it was a great networking event for Vanita and I and an excellent opportunity for us to learn more about the stregnths and areas of opportunity within the Indian sporting landscape. Also, growing football in India took up about 60% of the summit content which was reassuring given what my objective in coming to this country is. The lowlights were many pompous speakers who loved listening to the sound of their own voice, moderators only looking to create controversy, pointless questions from the audience and spending 2 days being sold on why sports are a smart investment in India.My recommendations are that next year there are more corporate marketers and governmental officials in the audience so at least we are selling sports to some of the people who hold the purse strings. Also, there should be more breakout sessions as everyone got a little antsy sitting in their seats for about 8 hours a day. This was the first summit and I’m confident that future ones will be even better.
I’ve included some pictures from the event. The first one is of me, PIFA founder Nirvan Shah and agent Yogesh Joshee (who is KC Wizards player Sunil Chhetri’s agent).The second one of is me with AIFF marketing head Sukhvinder Singh. The third is of Vanita with Indian cricket legend Kapil Dev. The final one is of me and Indian national team coach (and former Rapids coach) Bob Houghton.
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