MUMBAI: Twitter’s primary role is to allow the democratization of voices amongst those in the sporting ecosystem in India, Aneesh Madani, head, Sports Partnerships, Asia Pacific, for the social media giant argues.
Speaking here last Friday, 30 November, at the Star Sports India Football Forum (IFF) 2018, organized by SportzPower, Madani assessed Twitter’s growth and changes in strategy since 2014 as he emphasised on sport running on four-year cycles. He took a cue from the gap between nearly every major sport’s biggest event – such as the Olympics or World Cups.
Incidentally, 2014 was the same year in which the first season of the Indian Super League (ISL) kickstarted. Madani revealed that it was the popularity of the beautiful game in Kerala which was enhanced by the immense turnout for the home team, Kerala Blasters’ matches that was one of the drivers for Twitter India’s football expansion.
Madani’s passion for football saw him watching and scanning domestic league matches in some parts of the country prior to the tournament for exploring the game’s potential.
With the ISL bursting on to the scene and impressive performances of the national team, Indian football’s popularity has risen at a level that the country’s expressive youth has used related hashtags in their Twitter posts three times more this year than in 2014.
Incredibly, Madani pointed out that taking many Indian football teams’ Twitter accounts cumulatively, they have received 3.5 million mentions on the social media platform over the last four years, with the number only expected to grow exponentially by 2022.
For him, the turning point of the game having a definitely bright future, came earlier this year courtesy Indian national football team captain Sunil Chhetri’s passionate plea on Twitter prior to the Intercontinental Cup at home, asking fans to throng the stadiums and for their support. Chhetri is being seen as an icon and brand alike, much like top cricketers. Madani says that compared to 2014, the football star has 60 times more followers today, which stands at 1.53 million!
Talking about Indian sport on a whole, Madani opines that while Twitter is a fantastic medium to advocate a strong culture amongst non-cricket sports, it will remain a process. He stressed on the importance of athletes giving solid on-field performances the highest priority, as these will automatically make them gain popularity on social media.
He cited the example of 2016 Olympics Bronze medal winning wrestler Sakshi Malik winning 150,000 followers only a month after she tweeted about her performance.
Madani pointed to the two major stakeholders crucial to Twitter’s connection with and contribution to Indian sport: Broadcasters and teams/individuals.
Although Twitter is expanding it sports live streaming rights portfolio globally with the likes of the Caribbean Premier League cricket tournament for example, it does not consider television broadcasters and the medium as potential competition. The social media giant’s collaborating with and complementing them is the need of the hour, he avers.
Madani concluded with a suggestion for Indian sports teams’ with respect to their marketing and promotional strategies online. With Hindi and Tamil being the two most popular languages for sports viewership on digital platforms in the country, Madani was optimistic of teams going regional for making their brands much stronger and providing their loyal fans with personalized, relatable content. This will drive up more engagement and interactions, boosting more sponsorship opportunities as well, he argued.
