The medium for Indian businesses to go transnational – Sport

Earlier, MNCs would bet big on Indian sport as a way to enter the world’s second largest consumer market. Pepsi, Nike, LG are all glaring examples. But it won’t certainly be long before a large number of Indian companies take a leaf out of their book.

The first Indian company which perhaps invented the strategy to use sport as a way for brand building is the Tata Group. In 2004, they decided to sponsor the first Indian Formula One driver ever, Narain Karthikeyan through its flagship product, Tata Tea. And this turned out to be a gamble worth taking for the sake of global appeal.

Kingfisher, UB Group’s most popular brand seemed to be keeping an eye on Tata as they created their own Formula One team called Force India in the 2007-08 season. The team has not had any breakthrough performances as yet and Vijay Mallya’s sky high ambitions have led to his company’s decline subsequently. However, this let his close friend and the owner of Sahara Group, Subrato Roy have a 42% stake in his team and allowed it to survive.

Sahara might be passionate about Indian sport but their on-going spat with the BCCI led them to sponsor the Bangladesh cricket team from this year onwards. They may want to grab more eyeballs at least in India by paying peanuts, with the advent of global broadcasting. A similar strategy is being implemented by another alcoholic brand, Royal Stag which recently decided to sponsor the New Zealand cricket team and the Bangalore-based conglomerate; the Confident Group will do the same for a resurgent West Indies side.

When it comes to football, Mahindra Satyam became the first Indian company by sponsoring and being the IT services provider from the year 2010 for the FIFA World Cup, the biggest sporting event in the world after the Olympic Games. Despite their financial scandal in the late 2000s, Satyam miraculously rebounded in no time and went one step ahead by doing the same for the NBA league and NASCAR races in the USA and the Singapore Youth Olympics.

Venkys, India’s largest poultry firm acquired 100% ownership of the EPL club, Blackburn Rovers in 2010. Though it has not been a big success, HCL Infosystems still has decided to venture into club football by promoting their latest ME Tablet, specifically designed for the Turkish market by sponsoring the popular Galatasaray football and volleyball teams respectively.

And lastly, when it comes to NBA, Satyam is not the only one present from India. A Mumbai born Silicon Valley tycoon, Vivek Ranadive acquired the Sacramento Kings team a month ago, creating history. India is everywhere, isn’t it?