The Indian Sports Infrastructure market - An Analysis and Opportunities ahead !

Globally sports is recognised as a great enabler for nation building owing to its positive influence – directly/ indirectly - on various sectors of the economy. The sports industry has rapidly grown and evolved over the years. To develop sports, countries such as the US, the UK, Russia, China and Germany have made massive investments in sports infrastructure over the years. The US has 3 stadiums per million people vis-a-vis none in India (Source: World Bank, World stadiums, Indian Olympics Committee, CRISIL Research; Note: Population figures are as of 2016, Olympic medal are of Rio Olympics 2016).

Global sports events, such as Olympics, Commonwealth Games etc. have also driven investment in sports infrastructure for emerging economies such as China and Brazil. During Beijing 2008 Olympics, 22 new sports avenues were built and 72 stadiums were constructed or renovated. During Rio 2016 Olympics, 9 avenues were constructed.

For a country frequently dismissed as the most under-performing sports nation for a population of 1.2 billion (Census 2011), sports are neither perceived as career option nor does the vast majority of the talent pool have access to sports facilities (hardly reaching 8-9% of the population and that too predominantly in the urban areas). Hence, India has very little to show in terms of achievements in global sports events. For instance, in Summer Olympics India’s performance as well as participation was way below its counterpart China’s, as well as other economies of comparable sizes.

India’s and China’s performance in Summer Olympics:

Summer Olympics	2004 Athens	2008 Beijing	2012 London	2016 Rio De Janeiro
India' performance
Total athletes participation	73	56	83	120
Medals won	1	3	6	2
--Gold	0	1	0	0
--Silver	1	0	2	1
--Bronze	0	2	4	1
China's performance
Total athletes participation	384	639	396	412
Medals won	63	100	91	70
--Gold	32	48	38	26
--Silver	17	22	31	18
--Bronze	14	30	22	26

Source: International Olympic Committee, CRISIL Research

Sports infrastructure plays a crucial role in creating a culture of sports amongst citizens of a country. In India, sports have been predominantly the domain of the public sector. Private/ corporate sector sometimes participate through corporate social responsibility (CSR) and public private partnership (PPP) in sports infra development, although overall contribution is substantially lower than government spending. In India, sports infrastructure is poor owing to lower allocation of funds by the government (less than 1% of the union budget). Moreover, over dominance of cricket has impacted the development of overall sports infrastructure.

Lack of clear policy roadmap to develop sports infrastructure has also been impacting India’s performance at global sports events. On the other hand, China’s better performance at global sports events is supplemented by its government’s continuous efforts to develop the relevant infrastructure. The Chinese government is planning to build a number of towns dedicated as centers of sporting excellence for various disciplines in coming years.

However, lately sports is going through a transformational phase in India, as the government and private institutions are now increasingly focusing on inculcating sporting culture amongst the youth.

Govt. grants under Sports Infrastructure Scheme for creation and up-gradation of sports infrastructure projects:

Besides the central government’s Khelo India scheme (whereby Rs. 17.56 billion is planned to be spent over fiscals 2018-20), related schemes for promotion of sports excellence, conferring ‘industry’ status to sports infrastructure and introduction of sports as a subject in schools are a big welcome.

Key objectives of Khelo India Scheme:

                        

Indian Sports infrastructure has for the most part been associated with massive stadiums that cost Billions of Rupees. Almost by default, they tend to be located in large capital cities. While these are quite necessary to conduct very large national or international events (National Games / Commonwealth Games / Asian Games), they are otherwise a dead investment!

Considering that only sportsperson who practice to compete at the national and international level need such international-class facilities, there is a huge opportunity – and even necessity - to provide the vast majority of the nation with access to sports facilities that are not as expensive or elaborate.

The conventional approach where a city has one huge, international class stadium comes with various other challenges, other than just the massive cost. For the most part, the access is limited and anything that is over 5-8 kms each way becomes impractical to reach each day within the limited free time that most students and amateur sportspersons have.

Moreover, such stadiums typically tend to be designed for just one sport (eg. Hockey) or at most two (Athletics and Football). This greatly restricts the wide usage that sports facilities should ideally cater to.

Thankfully Khelo India Scheme is designed to address this very issue by decentralising the allocation of funds. The projects that can be sanctioned to a) state governments/state sports council/state sports authority; b) local civil bodies; (c) public school, colleges and universities; and (d) sports control boards along with the maximum admissible grant are:

Maximum admissible grants under the Khelo India scheme:

Particulars	(Rs.) mn
Synthetic athletic track	70
Synthetic hockey field	55
Synthetic turf football ground	50
Multipurpose hall	80
Swimming pool	50
Construction of stadia complex	500

India can become a true sports country only when most of – if not all – the citizens have access to pursue various sports. It is when different sports are played for fun initially and later explored for serious pursuit, aided by trained coaches that talent truly emerges.

This requires basic sports facilities that are multi-sport and within an accessible distance to be used regularly. And all the more critical to have in the semi-urban and rural areas, which is really the untapped potential of India.

The same 4-5 Billion Rupees that it may take for a large international standard stadium, can actually help set up over 100-200 such facilities in the rural areas. The entire focus of the investment would be on playing surfaces and not any other peripheral development like galleries, lighting or rooms.

This is a smart and effective approach that virtually guarantees greater accessibility, participation, talent identification and potential champions. And rightly so, under a theme of “Taking Sport to the People”, we at Great Sports Infra, created 3 models of deployment of such “Smart Sports Infra” depending on the population sizes in district headquarters, Taluks and small towns.

All these “Smart Sports Infra” models are designed to cater to multiple sports (almost every track and field event of Athletics including Sprints, middle and long distance runs, Throws, Jumps, Basketball, Volleyball, Tennis etc., as well as all grass based sports at an amateur level) all within a fairly small area (12,000 SQM), with Fencing and optionally Lighting… all this at just 1% of the cost of a typical international stadium, and yet lasting 12-15 years, outdoors, with virtually no maintenance!

Model 1 is designed for District HQ, where the population is larger than taluks and towns. Such places typically have migration of students as well as sports persons from villages and towns, to pursue education and/or sports at a higher level. This would be the facility where the teams of nearby towns can gather for tournaments and matches.

  

Such a facility provides the opportunity to pursue various sports (and more sports than Models 2 and 3) and at a higher level of proficiency. Depending on the population size and geographic spread, a specific district HQ could have more than one such facility or a combination of Models 1, 2 and 3.

Model 2 is designed as an intermediate level with most of the facilities and sports of Model 1 but not all. But this would comfortably suffice a small town with limited population and geographical size.

Model 3 is designed for the smallest population where the government intends to provide sports infra. While being very basic, it still provides access to many sports encouraging people to try out various sports, provides reasonable and safe infrastructure.

With the advent of successful leagues in various sports, India is finally moving away from being a “Cricket” nation and embracing various sports. The success of “Pay-N-Play” facilities in most cities now is also a reflection of the transition from a “spectator” nation to a “participant” nation in sports. Most of the players

(neighborhood friends, colleagues, classmates, families, play-buddies) in such “PNP” facilities are there just for the sheer joy of playing sports and not necessarily to become world champs…reflecting the true spirit of why sports are played in the first place and the start of a “sports” culture in India.

Spreading the culture of sports to the hinterland is the secret for unleashing India’s potential as a sports nation. And “Smart Sports Infra” offers that solution at the most optimal cost and in a most effective manner.

A sporting nation has much more benefit to the country than just medals to show. Sports is meant not to just produce champions but is proven extremely beneficial to the health and efficiency of its population, engendering the spirit of sportsmanship, a community spirit, an effective tool in disturbed areas to keep the youth engaged, the invaluable life lesson that sports can impart. All these go in making India a great nation. And “taking sport to the people’ is the most optimal and fastest way to achieve it and the government certainly needs to adopt such a policy.

But as per the National Sports Policy, 2001 the central government in conjunction with the state governments, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the National Sports Federation will concertedly pursue the twin objectives of "broad-basing" of sports and "achieving excellence in sports at the national and international levels". However, implementation of the sports policy has not been up to the mark. The country still lacks adequate sports infrastructure. Although the primary responsibility of broad-basing sports is with the state governments (as per National Sports Policy, 2001), lack of funds and the absence of a separate sports policy at the state level have impacted the development of sports infrastructure. Moreover, inclusion of sports in the concurrent list of the Constitution of India has been pending for a long time.


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