India Would Benefit From Hosting Olympics, Reckons Dream Sports Foundation CEO

India hosting the Olympics in 2036 will be huge boost for the entire sporting ecosystem in the country, reckons the chief executive officer of Dream Sports Foundation, Neel Shah.

India has officially expressed its candidature for the hosting rights of the 2036 Summer Games but faces stiff competition from Qatar, Indonesia, Chile and Turkey who are the other confirmed bidders. In order to prepare for hosting the Olympics, India is also aiming to bring the Commonwealth Games to the country in 2030.

In an exclusive interaction with Outlook on the National Sports Day, Shah said that hosting such big events will help the sports ecosystem in the country.

"If we do win the bid and are given the hosting rights, I feel all aspects of the sporting ecosystem in India will be benefited by it," said Shah.

He also talked about how Olympics in India could be a big opportunity for the Dream Sports Foundation, which works at the grassroots level to prepare athletes and the ecosystem around them.

"These events are incredibly important from a direct level. Of course, we would want to be involved in supporting young athletes, in terms of helping them do well at these international stages, because that's always a feeling of pride and a feeling of excitement," he said.

He added that such events will lead to more people getting excited about sports.

"From an indirect perspective, whenever these larger events are taking place and we have Indian athletes participating in them, the whole focus in the country becomes around sports and sports development. The government gets more excited about supporting and identifying gaps," he stated.

"And companies like ours that are sports companies through and through benefit from that, because as more and more people are identifying sport as a way to drive national pride and do better for society, companies like ours start to get more support and encouragement to keep doing what we're doing.

"So I think these international competitions like Commonwealth Games, Youth Olympics, Summer Olympics, Asian Games are all really great events for us to stop and focus on the power of sports, and the pride that these individual athletes can bring."

Significance Of National Sports Day

For an organisation like Shah's, National Sports Day assumes added significance and the group celebrated it by organising a school-level hockey tournament in Mumbai.

"National Sports Day celebrates the past, present and future of sports in India and that's very important to us. One of the ways that we're showcasing how important it is is through our partnership with the Mumbai School Sports Association."

Shah aims to bolster the sports scene in India by working at the ground level and even though he feels things are improving, he also is keen to address the gaps that plague the system.

"Through our education and upskilling initiative, we work with coaches, administrators, parents, subject matter experts to help them become more empowered to make sure that the athlete always has the right ecosystem around.

"And when it comes to grassroots sports, we know that's very much a gap area. There's a lot of young people who want to play in safe and engaging environments.

"So we work in that area through our school partnerships. We also engage with a lot of school competitions to elevate the experience of youth participating in these events. We've set up academies as well and are regularly looking at ways to bring in sports science and sports technology to elevate the youth sports experience as well through real-time stats and live streaming of matches," Shah explained.

Not Just Cricket Now

He also believes that despite the behemoth that cricket is in India, other sports are growing as well.

"Yeah, cricket is a fantastic sport and it's grown to help India become such a success at the international stage," Shah said.

"That being said, India is a large country, and I've been here for a long time, and I've been fully engaged in the sports industry outside of cricket, and I've seen a lot of growth in other sports as well.

"Football, in terms of participation and popularity, has grown tremendously in certain pockets, not just the traditional ones, but also a lot of new markets as well," he added.

"I've seen a lot of excitement growing among youth in badminton. I've seen excitement, definitely in table tennis. Now we're seeing pickleball and paddle and chess coming up. Rugby and kho kho have leagues now and there's a lot of young people participating.

"Athletics is growing too, thanks to the likes of Neeraj Chopra and others doing really well at the international level."

AI For Sports Development

The foundation is now aiming to utilise newer technology and artificial intelligence to develop the sports ecosystem on the ground level.

Shah elaborated: “The Dream Sports Foundation is dedicated towards the use of technology and AI to improve efficiencies and analytics across sports training. We strongly believe that technology has an integral role to play, even for development at the grassroots level.

"Further, we want to also continue building high-quality competitions in grassroots sports to ensure the young athletes get the best exposure for their growth, which is currently a need gap in the sports ecosystem.”