Duniya Goal Hai: Sports and the Indian blogosphere
Pratyush [for DesiPundit]
To understand sports in the Indian blogosphere, we have to first understand what sport means in Indian minds first and foremost. It is easy to say that India is a cricket mad country and hence other sports do not have the chance to flourish in the country. However, ask any middle class Indian and he/she will tell you experiences of playing at least some sports – be it football, table tennis, cue sports, badminton, chess.. The list can go on.
What this tells us is -
a) The infra structure isn’t developed for else, surely we would be producing   more international standard sports persons given our population
b) A large proportion of Indians do love their sport.
Sport at the highest level is a tough grind – as the case is in any field. For a common man on the street though, it is the entry into a world of fun free from the hassles of life. This relief reduces for most people – as kids they played more while as adults the priorities change. The youth too play far less with more time spent in front of the computer or television. The love for sport among a large portion of Indians remains though the shifting of priorities means that they can merely glance over sporting happenings, let alone play a lot of it.
Cricket remains the quick relief exit. The media sells what the people want and most other sports are thus neglected by the media. However, the last few years have seen a shift and television has a large part to play in this. The splurge of channels has a reflection on sport channels as well – we have Ten, Zee, DD, Eurosport, Goal TV apart from ESPN-Star. The channels have to fill slots and so sports which are lower on demand in the Indian market are also hyped up. Indians are exposed to more world class action and horizons expand. Local sports also get a boost – as evident with Zee sports buying Indian football rights.
Performances have to exist to create interest among the masses but even if we see a flicker of a brilliant performance in a sport which is television friendly, television companies will latch on to the sport to sell it – as we are seeing now with increased tennis coverage after performances of Sania Mirza.
The desi blogosphere has moved out of its infancy stage but is still a very small child. The number of people who visit Indian blogs and blogs from India is still very low. We all know of Instapundit but even if we speak about sports blogs, Deadspin (part of the Gawker network) gets 96,000 unique hits a day. How many Indian blogs get even half the number of hits a sport blog in the US gets? We are growing at a fast pace but we are still very small and till a lot more people click on blogs every day, the mainstream media will not take most blogs seriously most often. Given that sport is a small fry compared to politics, movies and cricket, and given that the Indian blogging scene is so young, the situation of sports in the desi blogosphere can be understood easily. There are a handful of Indian sports blogs out there. However, as the sporting graph of the country is rising along with the number of Indian blogs, more sports blogs can be expected to appear.
My personal experience of blogging and sports blogging specifically has been great. Blogging provides an instant publishing tool in your hands. You no longer have to cringe that X is not talked about while Y is. You can throw your opinion at the world. Even if one person visits your blog, you have a reader who spends some of his/her precious time each day which could have been spent some where else. That is a big compliment in itself for you. Along with the compliment, it means there is an onus to provide the reader with quality so that there is no disappointment. I am very new to sports blogging – before I shifted domains 2 months ago, I blogged very infrequently without any time given to it. You keep trying to provide honest perspectives to your reader base and not disappointing them. This means that you seek out more and thus increase your knowledge and perspectives. So more than any one, you are the person who benefits.
Blog on.
10 comments
Suyog
June 19th, 2006, 7:44 am | #
“How many Indian blogs get even half the number of hits a sport blog in the US gets?” — How many ppl in India compared to US do you find blogging in the first place or being on Internet? That explains your dilemma I guess
Secondly, as you said rightly I think the problem itself is that most desis dont get over Cricket (note to other desi bloggers: I dont mean you of course :P), and cricket being such a long game (literally - a whole day!), there is little time left for anything else either I guess hehe
Unless the media starts promoting other sports, I dont forsee how we will come out of that mindset though.
Great writeup here Pratyush!
Suyog
arZan
June 19th, 2006, 10:52 am | #
I dont think blogs on sports would get the kind of readership that other blogs get.
Not everybody digs sports. And even if they do, then it might be one particular sport or to zoom in more, one particular team of one particular sport.
That makes it a very small subset.
On the other hand, topics like current affairs, politics, movies or sex have a lot more practitioners, users, viewers and therefore more participation in the blogosphere.
Sakshi
June 19th, 2006, 11:03 am | #
Arzan - So you asking Pratyush to move on Sex instead of Sports ?
Pratyush this is a really good write-up. I guess as long as you enjoy writing…then blogging is all worthwhile. Good readership…is just an extra bonus but never a necessity.
confused
June 19th, 2006, 1:05 pm | #
Sakshi,
I beg to differ. While one does write for one’s own pleasure, I feel it would unsustainable on a long term basis without readership. Ok,maybe not the kinds of hits Amit Varma gets but at least a decent number of people reading you every day. The very fact that you have chosen to put your thoughts on a public domain means that you want people to read you.
Correct me if I am wrong, but that is the rationale behind setting up DP too.
Vishal Chopra
June 19th, 2006, 1:50 pm | #
well…there are lots of sports we play as kids..but they never become a priority…we don’t have an infrastructure where we have big interuniversity level teams…or say Delhi playing Mumbai in a soccer game..we do have clubs which are not so popular among the people..there may be few Mohan Bagan or Dempos here and there but not serious..I think if the universities start promoting sports with more sports scholarships it would be a whole different story…I think we really need a boost from the government in this front too. We used to be the best hockey team in the world, but what happened.. we loose to Australia 4-1..Cricket..only cricket..well thats the one which is so much hyped..see whats happening against West Indies…even Trinidad and Tobago are playing in the FIFA cup..can’t a country of more than a billion people produce a decent soccer team??? Wel the question always remains there….hope for the best though…
Sakshi
June 19th, 2006, 10:42 pm | #
Confused - The rationale behind DP is simple, it’s there to let us know what good stuff is out there in the desi-blogosphere. News/Views from all the sections/fields/community of the Indian society.
I never said Readership is not valid or needed…in my experience if you enjoy what you write…others will surely see it thru. Its simple as when they ‘Learn to love yourself first and then others would love you’.
There are (some)bloggers who write controvercial stuff just to get more hits…but do they actually believe in what they write, I doubt!
Anyways, its to each its own.
But I am sure our man Pratyush here writes about sports…because he believes in his thoughts.
Pratyush
June 21st, 2006, 8:06 am | #
Thank you Suyog, Sakshi.
Arzan, how can you explain a deadspin getting the hits it gets then? Not that far behind instapundit. The main aspect driving people coming back to a web page is if they like what they see.
So even if the interest area is not that wide for a more general topic with lower interest base compared to other fields, if that small audience like what they see, the audience for a small interest blog can also be large.
Confused, audiences are good but you don’t write keeping trying to draw an audience. You write because you want to put across a point. It should not be the other way round as that would mean shallowness as far as I am concerned.
Vishal, infrastructure for sports in India is improving and even though slow, there is definitely progres..
Sakshi
June 21st, 2006, 9:53 am | #
Way to go boy Pratyush !!
arZan
June 21st, 2006, 12:17 pm | #
Pratyush
How many other blogs come close to deadspin.
how many of the top 100 blogs deal with sports ?
Instapundit is one amongst at least two dozen blogs that write on current affairs, etc.
So just comparing the stats of one sportsblog and applying it to the whole genre is not a correct portrayl.
Pratyush
June 21st, 2006, 12:52 pm | #
Arzan, you miss the point.
On the traffic talk:
I am not debating that current affairs is the more popular topic and is thus going to have more popular blogs.
My point - even less popular mediums can have exceptional number of hits if they are powered by good content.
After all, the internet is so huge that there are enough people to drive up the traffic of even apparent less populist topic sites.
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