It is a well known thing that India eats, sleeps and
breathes cricket. So much so, followers of other sports is (was?) largely
restricted to a few pockets (football in Kerala, Goa and some parts of East
India, for example).
Though sport on satellite television has been in India for
25 plus years and sport other than cricket has been regularly been beamed to
our living rooms, Television Rating Points (TRPs) are only mentioned when
cricket is on TV. The premier league soccer and NBA's basketball games have the
faithfuls in India tuning in regularly. Thankfully, the last few years has led
to a sea change in the viewing habits of people.
Cricket has always been India's unoffical 'national game' and continues to be so. It started becoming so from india's cricket World Cup victory in 1983, which was then considered astonishing. For television rights, cricket still commands astronomical amounts. It is not that cricket has taken a backseat, but other
sports have achieved increasing traction among the Indian audience, which is
heartening indeed.
Football, Kabaddi, tennis, badminton have all gained interest with us Indians. It also has partly to do with Indian successes in sport. Sania and Saina are household names and have inspired a lot of youngsters to take up the sport too, apart from making their sports gain significant inroads into the viewing preferences of the Indian. It should be acknowledged that individuals like Narain Karthikeyan, for example, have done something for their respective sports on their own.
Football, Kabaddi, tennis, badminton have all gained interest with us Indians. It also has partly to do with Indian successes in sport. Sania and Saina are household names and have inspired a lot of youngsters to take up the sport too, apart from making their sports gain significant inroads into the viewing preferences of the Indian. It should be acknowledged that individuals like Narain Karthikeyan, for example, have done something for their respective sports on their own.
It is gladdening to note that India has 12 non-HD sports
channels, which, most of the time, beam sport other than cricket into our
living rooms. Advertisers have also realised that there is life beyond cricket,
which has led to the sports channels promoting these. Imagine this - exclusive
cricket channels have been dumped by both TEN and STAR! We are showing interest
in other sport and this will really translate into tomorrow's India competing
in these.
We are not a single sport viewing country anymore!
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