Dileep Kumar
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MUMBAI: India has always been a sports obsessed nation. While the definition of “sports” was so far limited to a collective few like cricket and football, emerging focus on kabaddi, badminton and tennis through upcoming popular leagues, is fast changing this existing notion of what comprises sports.
Carving an audience for itself is another emerging sport: The National Basketball Association.
Popular as NBA India, the sport has found a growing audience in the country thanks to the multiple activities it has been pursuing for creating a large fan base both at the grassroots level as well as on the digital front.
Leading NBA India as its managing director is the young, dynamic and former university level basketball player, Yannick Colaco who oversees NBA's India business, while also leading its growth plans with focus on growing the game of basketball in India from the bottom -up.
Having begun his career in 2001 with IMG, Colaco has extensively covered the sports industry in a number of roles like acquisition, sales, world feed production and global rights licensing.
It’s been a long journey for NBA India. The property has been trying to build a massive fan base across the nation since its inception in 2011. When asked how the journey for the sports so far been, Colaco enthusiastically says, “Since its inception in India in October 2011, NBA has stayed focused on growing the game as well as the fan base."
He further adds, "In a short period, we’ve already had tremendous success in staging over 500 events across 10 cities, providing unprecedented access to our game through television, social media and digital, and in distributing our merchandise through retail stores."
As a true testimony of the growing audience for NBA, "we’ve seen participation in our events double, our merchandise sales double, our viewership on media platforms grow by over 200 per cent, and our social media following increase by over 450 per cent,” informs Colaco.
With NBA India and Multi Screen Media (MSM) signing a three year television agreement in 2012, the official broadcast partner for the game currently is Sony Six. Commenting on the association, Sony Six business head Prasana Krishnan says, “NBA has a long term potential in India. The infrastructure availability is more when it comes to basketball in India as it requires minimal investment. Our alliance aims at improving the coverage and visibility of the sport. And therefore all our efforts are tuned towards building it as a positive sport.”
Many may feel that telecasting basketball matches in India in the early morning slot could pose a challenge in getting viewers. But Colaco seems unaffected and says, “We’ve been working very closely with our broadcast partner Sony Six to increase the access of the games to our fans. This year, we launched the platform #NBAmorningsOnSix wherein we showcased two live matches of the season every day. This meant we were airing 14 live NBA matches a week!"
The focus was on creating appointment viewing by providing sports fans with live NBA action at a fixed time every morning. "We've had tremendous success with this. Our live game reach has already crossed 40 million viewers. In addition, Sony also broadcasts daily highlights of our games in the prime time slot," he adds. Read More:-http://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/sports/nba-hopes-to-jump-higher-with-basketball-in-india-140618
Carving an audience for itself is another emerging sport: The National Basketball Association.
Popular as NBA India, the sport has found a growing audience in the country thanks to the multiple activities it has been pursuing for creating a large fan base both at the grassroots level as well as on the digital front.
Leading NBA India as its managing director is the young, dynamic and former university level basketball player, Yannick Colaco who oversees NBA's India business, while also leading its growth plans with focus on growing the game of basketball in India from the bottom -up.
Having begun his career in 2001 with IMG, Colaco has extensively covered the sports industry in a number of roles like acquisition, sales, world feed production and global rights licensing.
It’s been a long journey for NBA India. The property has been trying to build a massive fan base across the nation since its inception in 2011. When asked how the journey for the sports so far been, Colaco enthusiastically says, “Since its inception in India in October 2011, NBA has stayed focused on growing the game as well as the fan base."
He further adds, "In a short period, we’ve already had tremendous success in staging over 500 events across 10 cities, providing unprecedented access to our game through television, social media and digital, and in distributing our merchandise through retail stores."
As a true testimony of the growing audience for NBA, "we’ve seen participation in our events double, our merchandise sales double, our viewership on media platforms grow by over 200 per cent, and our social media following increase by over 450 per cent,” informs Colaco.
With NBA India and Multi Screen Media (MSM) signing a three year television agreement in 2012, the official broadcast partner for the game currently is Sony Six. Commenting on the association, Sony Six business head Prasana Krishnan says, “NBA has a long term potential in India. The infrastructure availability is more when it comes to basketball in India as it requires minimal investment. Our alliance aims at improving the coverage and visibility of the sport. And therefore all our efforts are tuned towards building it as a positive sport.”
Many may feel that telecasting basketball matches in India in the early morning slot could pose a challenge in getting viewers. But Colaco seems unaffected and says, “We’ve been working very closely with our broadcast partner Sony Six to increase the access of the games to our fans. This year, we launched the platform #NBAmorningsOnSix wherein we showcased two live matches of the season every day. This meant we were airing 14 live NBA matches a week!"
The focus was on creating appointment viewing by providing sports fans with live NBA action at a fixed time every morning. "We've had tremendous success with this. Our live game reach has already crossed 40 million viewers. In addition, Sony also broadcasts daily highlights of our games in the prime time slot," he adds. Read More:-http://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/sports/nba-hopes-to-jump-higher-with-basketball-in-india-140618
