NBA looks to break into Indian market
The National Basketball Association (NBA), the premier North American professional basketball league, signed a multiyear agreement earlier this month with two Indian television networks to broadcast live NBA games and other NBA-produced
programming in India. The deal is part of the NBA’s strategy to gain a substantial fan base in India – although the organization is realistic about the chances of basketball ever overtaking cricket in a country where cricket is more of a religion than a sport.
“The race is now on to become India’s second most popular sport,” said Sunder Aaron, the business head of Pix, one of the two television networks that signed the deal. The other network is Ten Sports.
The television deal is just one of the many steps the NBA is taking in order to break into the Indian market, one of the biggest emerging markets in the world. With its fast-growing middle class, India has more and more people
willing and able to indulge in new kinds of entertainment. “There is a growing appetite for sports and entertainment and more options in India,” says Heidi Ueberroth, president of NBA International.
A core part of the NBA’s expansion strategy in India is to increase participation in the game at the grass-root level, based on the concept that people who play basketball are also more likely to follow the NBA. As the thinking
further goes, the more Indians who play basketball, the greater chance there is of an Indian player eventually being able to play in the NBA, which would exponentially increase India’s interest in the NBA overnight.
One example of the NBA’s grass-root initiatives is the NBA Mahindra Challenge, a series of youth tournaments in major Indian cities. Justice Troy, NBA India’s director of basketball operations, says that the idea is to give talented
Indian youngsters the opportunity to develop their skills – something he feels has thus far been missing in India.
Whether or not the NBA’s efforts to become the next big thing in India are fruitful, only time will tell. But the league’s viewership in India is indeed increasing quickly and steadily. “I thought I was the only person in the country
watching,” says Karan Madhok, communications director of the Basketball Federation of India and blogger on a website called Hoopistani. “But as I’ve started blogging about the NBA, I’ve been contacted more and more by other fans. And I realize there are a
lot more fans who do it.”
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