Football in India

The idea to write this post came into my mind when I was having a look at different groups of the World cup. I was really overwhelmed with a patriotic feeling and found myself wondering on the fact that, how is it possible that a country with population of over 1 Billion cannot produce 11 world class football player.

The primary reasons being:

• The first thing which struck me was the lack of infrastructure in our country. I tried to compare the number of cricket grounds to the number of football grounds present in our country and believe me the ratio was as low as it could get.
  
• Having left heartbroken from the government's side I turned towards the corporate India. I found out that the craze for football is immense in the corporate world. The Big Cats have already selected their sides and are backing them, but I was not able to find any answer as to why not even a single company is coming forward to sponsor our Indian Football team. I am not against Hockey or our Indian Hockey team but even they have got a loyal sponsor in form of Sahara, no matter how they perform.
  
• Then I turned towards the common man or the mango people or the aam aadmi of India and found that the following which cricket has in India is far more than that of football, but somehow I was not able to find good enough reasons to blame them because they buy what they see and at present the visibility of football in India is as low as it can get in a country like India.
• The improper functioning of the organization handling football in India is also a factor for such a pathetic condition of a beautiful game like football in our country. Consider the recent case of the Indian coach Bob Houghton, the organization did not had money to pay for the hike in salary requested by him.
  

But saying that Fifa will never be able to make into India and draw a significant amount of audience towards it will be totally wrong. Infact it has already started to form a grip on the Indian markets. Many Indian companies are launching their products in Fifa World cup instead of launching it long back in IPL season 3. The reason being that Fifa provides a global audience as against IPL.

Now I will be listing some of the factors which will play a significant role in laying a strong foundation for football in India. Who knows once we get a good enough fan base in our country we might be able to get a team who can qualify for the world cup.

• 20-20 cricket format has changed the preference of people to the shorter version of different games. Football is one such game which is getting an advantage due to this.
  
• Rise of sports marketing in India with the advent of large scale events like IPL. Who knows in future a major corporate house bids for the sponsorship of our football team. That day will change the way football is treated by the Indian masses.
• The Youth. Yes I am talking about you, me and the others who are in their late teens or early twenties. I have seen an immense following for football in these people. And I can bet you on this that they will act as a major driver for the upcoming of football in India. That time is not far when India will be having its own Ronney, Ronaldo and Messi.

There is hardly any reason as to why football will remain out of our focus for long. The driving factors are far more than the restraints and challenges faced by it. So lets wait and watch....

"With a little less than 36 hrs for the World cup to kick off, the excitement level in the Fifa fans is really worth seeing. I along with my team members at Brandistics will be supporting this mega event, with a wish in our hearts to see the Indian Flag flying high in the Fifa World Cup 2014."

"May the Best Team Wins" - (our apologies to all the die hard fans of different teams)

Stay tuned as Brandistics takes on the Fifa World Cup 2010...

Sach(in) Ka Saamna

I still remember the first cricket bat bought by me was a bat having a MRF logo on it. Any guesses as to why I went for tht bat and not any other bat..... The reason is that at that time SACHIN used to play with MRF bat. This is one such example which shows how blindly we Indians follow Sachin, I can quote hundreds of other examples which will prove the power of Brand Sachin and the day Sachin scored 200 in an ODI he got the status of GOD by us and brand Sachin became an undisputed champion.

So the question arises that how can one value a brand like Sachin??? Well in an interview Sachin himself mentioned that he should be valued in runs and not in rupees, thus setting up a perfect example of the fact that he is true to his profession. Because the more the runs scored by him the more space will be acquired by him in the hearts of people. Big brands like Adidas started with some small endorsements with him (during the earlier stages of Sachin's career) and have move on to create private labels with him. This evolution of his brand association in a way reflects the role played by him in the Indian team.

The list here mentions various record deals associated with Sachin.

In order to give a more appropriate view of the power of brand Sachin we would like to present you with the stats of Share of Voice (SOV) for some of the Indian players (Share of voice is the percentage of advertising of one brand in a particular category as compared to other brands in the same category).

Most of us will be startled to know that the SOV for the brand Sachin gone below 30% just once or twice in his whole career (Its just AWSUM, a boon for the companies who are associated with this brand). Tendulkar very rarely gets associated with a negative brand, instead he always gets associated with niche products and premium brands an that is the reason why he is not above Dhoni.

According to us Brand Sachin will become even more powerful in the coming days the reason being current form of Sachin and coming up of Cricket World Cup.

With this we will end this post. We will soon be coming out with more such analysis for our readers.
So Stay tuned......

I am Brandistics - I am All Padded Up's Baby

All Padded Up has been there forever. Since April 2008, to be precise. And cricket is what Ankit Poddar talks about at All Padded Up. With his experience at All Padded Up, he realized that cricket is a game of brands and cricketers are treated as brands. Of course, their statistics on the field play a major role in that. And so, I was born.

I am basically the baby of All Padded Up. I would be talking about cricket, that All Padded Up talks about, but from the perspective of brands and statistics and not just mere on field performances.

Of course, my parent in All Padded Up would be recommending you to me from time to time, and I hope the love and readership you have provided to my parent will be given to me as well.

So, I begin my journey!