Sports and India: A Thrilling Combination for Sport Tourists

Sports Growth in India

India is a country of about 1.3 billion people in South Asia. While the most popular sport in India is cricket, other sports have garnered interest in recent years. According to the firm of Ernst & Young (2017), seven new sports leagues were developed between 2012 and 2016, including a Premier Badminton League, Pro Kabaddi League, International Premier Soccer League, Indian Super League (soccer), Universal Basketball Alliance, Pro Wrestling League, and Premier Futsal League. Perhaps the largest growth can be seen in the Indian Super League (ISL), for which television viewership grew from 207 million in 2015 to 224 million in 2016. Star India, which owns the digital rights of the ISL, has seen viewership more than double from 41 million in 2015 to 110 million in 2016 on its Hotstar mobile streaming app. In addition, viewership for the Pro Kabaddi League grew 51 percent from 2012 to 2016.

Adventure and action sports are also popular in India. For example, white water rafting is popular in the ancient town of Rishikesh, known as the Gate to the Himalayas, and the best place for rafting the Ganges River. Auli, located in the northern part of India, is one of the major skiing destinations in the Himalayas. Hang gliding is popular in the State of Himachal Pradesh, and the mountain ranges of the Himalayas are popular spots for trekking and ice climbing. The white sandy beaches and clear blue waters of the Andaman and Nicobar group of islands are great places in India for scuba diving (Tourism on the Edge 2014).

Rahul Bhatnagar is the director general of the Sports Authority of India (SAI), which is part of the government of India. The SAI exists to promote capacity building for broad-basing sports and to achieve excellence in various competitive events at both the national and international levels as well as to plan, construct, acquire, develop, take over, manage, maintain, and utilize sports infrastructure and facilities in the country. Bhatnagar notes that sport has traditionally been given very low priority in India, thus there has been a lack of an evolving sports culture. Of the more than 700 million children and youth in the country, less than 50 million have access to organized, competitive sport (Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports 2018).

While historically India has not been noted for hosting sport events, the Indian Olympic Association announced in April 2018 their plans to bid on three major sport events: the 2026 Youth Olympics, the 2030 Asian Games, and the 2032 Summer Olympics. In 2017, the capital city of New Delhi hosted the International Shooting Sports Federation’s World Cup, which included the three shooting disciplines of pistol, rifle, and shotgun that are included in the Olympics. New Delhi also hosted the International Table Tennis World Tour in 2017. For the third time, the Asian Athletics Championships (a continental athletics event) were hosted in New Delhi at Ranchi’s new Mega Sports Complex. Finally, Kochi, Kolkata, New Delhi, Goa, Guwahati, and Navi Mumbai played host to the 2017 FIFA U17 World Cup with athletes from 24 nations and 6 soccer confederations. The 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi were the largest international multisport event in India. The games were host to 6,081 athletes from 71 Commonwealth nations competing in 21 sports and 272 events. The opening and closing ceremonies were held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the main stadium of the event. It was the first time that the Commonwealth Games were held in India and the second time they were held in Asia after Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998.

Your task is to market India as a sport tourism destination. What types of sport tourism would you promote?

1. The chapter describes a number of types of events (e.g., multisport events, multiple location events, cross-cultural events). Choose one of the events outlined in the case study and discuss how it falls under one or more of these types of events.

2. In the case study, Rahul Bhatnagar (secretary director general of the Sports Authority of India) suggests that less than 50 million of the more than 700 million children in India have access to organized, competitive sport. Describe an activity or initiative that you would suggest for enhancing youth sport in India.

3. According to the case study, India would like to bid on the 2032 Olympic Games. Do some further research on India and outline two or three ways you would promote India as the host of this type of first-order mega-event. Write this assignment as if it were being submitted to the Ministry of Sport in India. The assignment must be at least three pages and have correct citations using APA format.