DC-Comment: Sporting catalysts

Two remarkable events in a week, firsts in our sporting history, show how fashionable India is “in” as a sporting nation. Boxer Vijender Singh Beniwal and basketball player Satnam Singh Bhamara signing up for pro sport can be seen as catalysts who can change our outlook on sport. Both are path-breakers, Vijender perhaps more so, being an accomplished sportsman. The commercial factors that make a large middle class population with rising spending power hugely attractive to television broadcasters is why these avenues are opening up. This is just great in a nation that is obsessive about cricket, particularly IPL, its “pro sport” version.

All advertising is focused on millions-strong audiences glued to sporting action, which is why India’s brightest are getting these big breaks and why India is also turning a popular destination for international sport. The individual skills, talent and performance of Vijender Singh, India’s first boxer to win medals at the Olympics and the world championships, are so immense that moving up to a professional career via Queensbury Promotions was a logical final step. He does, however, lose the chance to represent India in future Olympics. Hoopster Satnam, a big man from a small Punjab village, is a work in progress, but has made history being drafted by NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. A player of Indian ethnicity in Canada, Sim Bhullar, made an NBA debut recently for Sacramento Kings, a team owned by an Indian Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur. We are now seeing remarkable events in Indian sport’s worldwide march.