In our cricket crazy nation, generally the other sports are getting step motherly treatment most of the times, from Govt as well as print and TV media. The recent example is the case of Bhumika Sharma(see above photograph) who won the Miss World Title in Body Building at Venice, Italy. There was no coverage in any news paper of her victory or in TV news. The news of her victory was circulated through social media like Whatsapp, twitter and you tube, then only public became aware that some Indian sports woman has won the world title in Body Building. The cricket crazy (specially men’s cricket) media went berserk when India lost to Pakistan in, Cricket’s Champion Trophy final, for two days after the final news paper and TV media were discussing why India lost.
Let us see what other sports are covered by print and visual media other than men’s cricket:
- Women’s cricket- Women World Cup is going on, how many of you are knowing about which teams are participating. Press is only covering India’s matches in bit details, but for other country matches they do not even bother. Like yesterday, when India beat Pakistan, there were two other matches West Indies v/s S Africa and Australia v/s New Zealand. Do you know the result of those matches? Star Sports who is official Broadcaster of Women World Cup has up till now has covered only 2 matches India v/s England and India v/s Pakistan. So how are we going to encourage women cricket.
- Tennis- Indian media has on/off relationship with tennis. Generally they cover four Grand Slam tournaments in bit detail, and TV coverage is also available for these grand slams. Other than these grand slams media does not cover much about other tournaments. Although Indian Players like Sania Mirza, Mahesh Bhupati and Laender Paes over the years have performed really well, but media hardly covers their matches in other that major tournaments where they might be playing.
- Badminton- Although this sport have given such a big Indian stars like Nandu Natekar, Dinesh Khanna, Prakash Padukone, Syed Modi and P Gopichand, who performed really well in their playing days, but print media never gave them their due and TV media was not that strong enough in those days. It is after the arrival of Saina Nehwal & PV Sindhu that print and TV media took notice of them and giving them due importance. Now there is one more name who is coming into lime light, is K Shrikanth who recently won two world series tournament. The situation might improve after private badminton league gains prominence.
- Golf- There are golfers in men circuit like Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal, Ali Sher and Gaurav Ghei, who are playing in world circuit, but how much coverage they get in Indian print and visual media. The less said about lady golfers. How many of you would know that few ladies golfer like Aditi Ashok and Vani Kapoor are playing in world circuit, that Aditi Ashok represented India in last Olympics and Vani Kapoor is India no. one golfer for last five years. This is all because of less print coverage and none of the golf tournaments in India are televised.
- Kabaddi- Men’s Kabaddi became famous only when its private league started and game started being televised. Although it is a Asian games sports and India has won every Asian Games Gold medal. Ladies Kabaddi is still not that famous.
- Hockey- It is still not given that importance, what it deserves. It started becoming famous when Indian Hockey league tournament started with involvement of overseas players. The performance of men’s hockey is improving day by day in Olympics, Asian games and World series, it has started getting print and visual media coverage.
- Football- This sports is not gaining much, although it has Indian tournaments and private leagues also, it gets adequate print and Visual media coverage but as India’s performance at Asians and world stage is below par, hence it is not gaining much in status.
- The other sports like wrestling,weight lifting, shooting , archery, boxing where Indian sport persons are doing quite well and they have won medals in Olympics, Asian games and World Series. These sports are not given much importance in print and visual media. Hardly their tournaments are given much coverage in print media and hardly their tournaments are televised.
- The less said about Athletics discipline sports. it looks like Indian sport body has forgotten about athletics. Hardly the tournaments are held, even if they are held, you see not much coverage in print and visual media. It is only because of there are hardly any players who have any standings in Asian and world circuit.
These are some of the major sports in which Indians are involved. There are other sports like Kho Kho, Polo, Judo/Karate and other martial arts sports, which are also played in India and players participates in them but they are hardly covered by media. So it is the duty of Sports Federations who are handling various sports to see that all the sports become popular and get media coverage, and if possible involve private companies for sponsor ships and TV channels for coverage. If this does not happen we will become the country where sports means only men’s cricket .
What you say my friends.
Awaiting for your feed backs and comments.
Nihil Desai
Well covered and detailed for every sport… social media rise has helped sports other than Cricket in gaining recognition… India is doing well in Billiards too historically.. My compliments Anil… Great going.
R. J. Dhople
The blog has taken note of the media mentality so well that hardly anything could be added other than to accept the truth. This is due to the public response towards the particular sports, which is the medium for making fast buck for channels, with overflowing advertisements. Love for Cricket started from the British rule, to hike their sports superiority to prove their presence during colonial status of India. However, unfortunately the trend remained even after throwing the Britishers out of our Sacred Country for good. The prominence of Cricket continued due to its unpredictable end for watching ball to ball due to the lazy lot to stick to their seat, which ultimately became the habit to forget other duties till some people stopped working or prior retirement to watch the game is a fact which I know, but can’t name due to my respect for them. Undue importance given to Cricket has been a terrible effect of non-performance of many, and further getting the situation worst by IPL.
IPL has no meaning other than an entertainment without either National spirit or sportsman spirit. Game fixing has already downgraded the event, but the habitual growth of weeds continue.
This tendency has been the reasons, why other sports didn’t get it’s dues, even though they have their own identity and the talents. Indian sports like Kabaddi etc. are not in the Media’s list, since they don’t fetch the money, even though it is the healthy game with talents and Concentratation for the youngsters to note for their future growth. Let’s hope the trend will certainly change as what we experience today the changing Bharat with effective leadership. There is need to change to give importance to other sports as well. This will certainly be happening with growing realization in the public opinion.
Anil Malik Post author
Very well said, your comments are well thought and very balanced. It really gives me encouragement to write my blog.
Bobby
Media covers what interests the people. What is needed is for interest in other sports to be encouraged in schools and so on and immediately media sensing increase in newspaper sales will cover those sports.
Excellent research done Anil!