Professionals lap up amateur sports

NEW DELHI: For somebody who loves his sleep, waking up early on a holiday is no easy feat. But every Sunday morning, Akshay Thakur leaps out of bed even before his 7am alarm goes off, wears his tracks, slips on a pair of bright red cleats, and heads out for a day of football. This is hardly unusual among kids, but Thakur is a 28-year-old stockbroker, who spends his day negotiating share prices dressed in a suit and tie.
“I played a lot during school and college, but once work started, getting together enough people and coordinating timings was always a challenge,” he says. Tired of waiting for others, he joined an amateur football league earlier this year, and has been playing regularly since.
Of late, many people have quit their full-time, often lucrative, careers, to set up amateur sports leagues for working professionals. The system is simple – people can sign up for league matches that continue for several weeks, or for shorter tournaments that last a day or two. They organize equipment, play space, and teammates for those who sign up alone – participants just have to show up. Whether it’s roughing it out on a football field, smashing a shuttle at indoor badminton courts, or trying to knock the ball outside the park to win a cricket match, adults in Delhi have never seemed to be more active in sports.
“We want people to have the same experience they had while playing in their childhood. It’s easy to get bogged down by stress from work or otherwise, and sports are a great outlet,” says Zeba Zaidi, who started Game On India with her husband Adnan in March.
Entrepreneurs who have started similar initiatives not only share a passion for sports, but have also had the opportunity to live overseas. The Zaidis lived in London for a decade and in Dubai for three years; Ajay Gupta, who started Sport365 in January, lived in countries like the US and Brazil for 19 years, while Siddharth Pandey of LEH LEH Sports worked in Sydney for three years. They pursued sports actively abroad but the lack of avenues here compelled them to start their own leagues, they say.
Apart from creating a platform for people to come and play, the leagues also allow participants to improve teamwork and develop camaraderie. “We organize events after the games, so players can interact with like-minded people,” says Gupta. “We have designed an online portal to give people access to their teams and sports. There’s also a section on players’ sporting history, and an option to chat with other members online,” says Zeba, adding their motto is to “get fit socially”.
In organizing group sports, they’ve faced challenges that go beyond assembling a team of willing players. Lack of play space, which has been debated endlessly when it comes to kids, is also a major problem for adults who want to sweat it out on the field. “Locations are few and expensive. We cannot avail ourselves of the pay-and-play scheme either. Good facilities in schools are also difficult to book,” says Gupta, who faced trouble in booking swimming pools for their water polo and triathlon events. “With DDA grounds, booking is very sarkaari,” says Jai Bankoti, head of operations, LEH LEH Sports.
Venue hurdles notwithstanding, they’ve all been able to run leagues or hold tournaments for different sports – scaled formats of football, cricket, basketball, badminton, volleyball – that run back to back. Since men tend to dominate participation in sports, at LEH LEH it’s mandatory for each team to have at least one woman player. General participants, however, tend to be working professionals between the ages of 20 and 50, even expats who’ve had the chance to play outdoor sports back home.
“We had someone travel from Saharanpur to play a league match every week, and two from Jalandhar,” says Adnan. Gupta says they’ve had over 900 participants since the league's formation, mostly repeats, while Bankoti adds they have about 100 players at any given day. There’s clearly a demand, but it's still a fledgling concept.
“There’s still an inertia when it comes to going out and playing. Sport is also not recognized as a part of fitness, so people focus more on gyms,” says Gupta. “There’s a problem in the mindset, which is why we have six not 60 medals. Firms encourage their official teams of 15 employees, while the others who don’t make it have no avenues. They don’t realize that sports can help employees at the workplace,” he says.