Stakeholders on the global football stage asserted their positive outlook towards India’s sharp rise as a sporting market during the RCB Innovation Lab’s Leaders Meet India in Bengaluru on Wednesday, November 29.
Nic Coward, the former General Secretary of the Premier League and CEO of UK Athletics, is among the global football experts participating in this revolutionary summit in India.
The summit aims to provide a look into the current and future sporting industry landscape in India and emphasizes transformative factors that are taking India into a new era of sporting excellence and business innovation.
“This (India) is the single greatest sports growth economy story anywhere in the world and will be for a considerable period of time,” Mr. Nic Coward stated.
“I think one of the great advantages that (India) has is that a lot of this entrepreneurial spirit can go from an idea through to execution pretty quickly. ISL doing what they did in order to grow and to develop created a compelling entertainment product. As things have progressed, there can now be greater coming together of an entire ecosystem”, he added.
The RCB Innovation Lab, through initiatives such as the Leader’s Meet: India, is bringing together influential figures from the international sports arena and establishing a platform where significant discussions and the exchange of innovative ideas take center stage.
The Premier League has garnered a substantial fan following in India over the years, particularly among the emerging middle class. The average age of an adult Premier League fan in India is 34.5 years, with 39% falling within the 25-34 age bracket.
Will Brass, the Chief Commercial Officer of the English Premier League, cited Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh as a key figure in expanding the popularity of the Premier League in India.
“Ranveer Singh has been really critical for us in understanding the market,” admitted Will Brass. “We have been working with him since 2017. He is an authentic fan of the game, an authentic fan of the league, and has delivered a great deal, growing the India-specific social media audiences that we have via the PLO India, social tags here.”
As per a YouGov survey conducted last year, India boasts a total of 160 million football enthusiasts, a number that is on the rise.
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