Sports – Dutch Uncles

Extramarks and Arsenal: The Edtech Platform’s Plan of Expanding Globally

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 12:35:11 +0000

The edtech progression in India has disrupted the traditional tuition businesses in India with its lectures with alluring images and videos and is now eyeing a new domain of edtech in sports.
To expand user base the edtech companies have taken the conventional route of becoming sponsors for cricket tournaments, printing their logos on the front side of the jersey and prize sponsorers for various school quiz competitions, but Extramarks – by striking a strategic partnership with one of world’s leading football club Arsenal is exploring new ways to expand its offerings and user base globally.
Recently, Extramarks has announced its partnership with Arsenal Football Club to become its exclusive official learning partner in India, South Africa, Indonesia, and the Middle East markets. This new agreement will enable Extramarks to combine football and education to drive awareness of its offerings and attract new-age learners by introducing grassroots-level learning programmes, football workshops, meet and greets with the players, and other exclusive competitions and experiences in partnership with Arsenal to bolster engagement with its flagship schools and learners. This edtech company will also have access to Arsenal’s wide array of digital, social, and logistical assets, including Arsenal imagery, club-certified coaches, and access to the club’s London Colney Training Centre to support learning opportunities at all levels. With this association, Extramarks aims to provide a wholesome learning experience both on-field and in the classrooms. In addition to this, the edtech platform will revamp its brand identity to be a provider of 360-degree learning solutions for in-school and at-home learning.

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Extramarks has announced its partnership with Arsenal Football Club to become its exclusive official learning partner in India, South Africa, Indonesia, and the Middle East markets.

Extramarks and Arsenal: A healthy combination

Restricted to homes for over a year and a half, and studying through gadgets and digital devices is making kids glued to the screens which in turn is making them devoid of co-curricular activities and the joys of playing outside. Sports intervention in academics is necessary for enhancing the overall personality of a child. By introducing grassroots-level learning programmes, football workshops and expert sessions Extramarks will be encouraging students to understand the importance of exercise, nutrition, and healthy lifestyle from professionals and find some good, healthy role models to emulate, and who knows Arsenal’s next budding football talent might be from India.
As the students saw school doors shut for 1.5 yrs the physical education period or sports period has vanished from the syllabus. This is where Extramarks’s sports offerings will differ from other edtech platforms that currently provide digital learning solutions for academics. It will also help the platform scale its business globally as with this association it will be serving in markets where football is a popular sport.

What lies ahead for edtech startups associating with sports clubs?

By launching sports learning programmes in association with sports clubs for students the tech companies are benefited from a huge potential of expansion, become a product differentiator offering co-curricular lessons other than academic, inculcate the importance of healthy lifestyle and making school children understand that sport can be a career option and not just a hobby.

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Virender Sehwag’s VS Brand Expansion Plans In India

Shalmoli Sarkar — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 05:35:09 +0000

Much to the likes of Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and Yuvraj, Virender Sehwag lovingly known as the Nawab of Najafgarh too plunged into the athleisure space with his homegrown brand ‘VS’ an acronym of his name. Launched in March 2020, VS by Virender Sehwag aspires to achieve Rs 100 crore revenues in the next 3 years and wants to acquire 5 million customers across India in 5 years. The brand other than his former teammate’s lifestyle brand is also competing with international mega-brands like Adidas, Reebok, Nike, and Puma.

With gyms and sports centres gathering dust, the need to be fit and active has increased in the pandemic, and so is the demand for activewear apparel. According to a study by Research and Markets, the activewear market in India is estimated to be Rs 997.8 billion by 2024, expanding at an annual growth rate of 13.5 percent during the 2019-2024 period.

Growth Strategy of VS by Virender Sehwag

Here are some of the strategies that are likely to be adopted by the brand to expand its share in the Indian athleisure market.

Attractive price range: Virender Sehwag himself belonging to a humble middle-class family understood there are hardly any sports brands that cater to the masses. The international sportswear brand’s steep price tags force consumers of tier-II and III cities to settle for inferior quality. The t-shirts available in VS brand costs between Rs 499-599, whereas the same shall cost Rs 3000-4000.
Dedicated to cricket: None of his former teammate’s brands focuses on selling cricket kits and equipment such as batting gloves, bat, and pads on their websites directly, and affording the same from an international brand will be expensive. VS by Virender Sehwag offers gloves, knee pads, and gloves on its online store.

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According to a study by Research and Markets, the activewear market in India is estimated to be Rs 997.8 billion by 2024, expanding at an annual growth rate of 13.5 percent during the 2019-2024 period.

Digital marketing strategy: Virender Sehwag is famous amongst the Hindi-speaking population of India due to his comic puns on sports on social media, fun commentary during matches, and interviews that have earned him a large fanbase. On social media, he has 13 million and 6.5 million followers on Facebook and Instagram respectively. The brand plans to leverage the same to lure more customers and increase the reach of the brand.
Going omnichannel: When we follow the omnichannel strategy, we are creating customer touchpoints and the means to move closer to them. Sales through digital channels such as apps and websites provide convenience whereas shopping from stores allows the customer to receive personalised advice. Going omnichannel offers customers a seamless shopping experience.

VS by Virender Sehwag – Physical stores till the date

VS will be launching three stores in 2021 in Vadodara, Kolhapur, and Sultanpur, his native state. The brand has launched its first store in Ahmedabad and has plans to launch two more in the same city. Gujarat has recently been birthing many young cricketers such as Krunal Pandya, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, and the current world’s number one fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah. It has also appointed distributors Delhi, Faridabad, Bhopal, Indore, Sri Ganganagar, and Kanpur. It also plans to launch 5 stores outside of Gujarat in a few days.

What lies ahead for an entrepreneur or a former sportsperson to foray into the athleisure space?

With increasing disposable income and more inclination towards maintaining a fit and healthy lifestyle, the demand for activewear apparel will witness an uptick in demand. The Indian Cricket team’s consistent winning streak overseas and the league format matches will encourage more individuals to buy merchandise of their favourite teams. Affordable sportswear brands will have ample business opportunities catering to the needs of aspiring sportspersons belonging to smaller cities and towns, since international brands have not yet tapped that space. The rise of organised retail in tier-II and III cities will also pave the demand of branded sportswear goods. Former sportspersons leveraging their large fanbase can expand their brand awareness to the masses.

The post Virender Sehwag’s VS Brand Expansion Plans In India appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Olympian Neeraj Chopra: Learnings From Sport For Entrepreneurs

Aakash Sharma — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 04:50:09 +0000

As Indian athlete and Olympian Neeraj Chopra got the country its first-ever gold medal in the Tokyo games’ track and field event, it is the only thing that everyone is talking about these days, and rightly so. Heralding a new era for Indian sports, Neeraj Chopra has made the country proud and inspired millions of up-and-coming players who can now dream of bagging a medal at the highest stage in the world.

But aspiring players and athletes are not the only ones whom Chopra’s Olympic Gold in Javelin throw has inspired. The journey that an athlete has to undergo is quite similar to what an aspiring entrepreneur goes through.

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There is a vast array of sports terminology, like 'Knocked it out of the park', 'The ball is in their court', 'Game of inches', among others, that is used to describe the happenings of business and in the workplace.

So, let’s see how learning from sports can help entrepreneurs succeed in business.

Starting is lonely and often discouraging

It is a fact that every beginner goes through the blues of starting something new. While the adrenaline seems amiss in delving into the new paradigm, be it a new sport or setting up a small business, the beginning seems more challenging due to that fear of new and unknown. But as the saying goes, “Rome was not built in a day”, the same is true for an athlete and a business. Starting is lonely, but it is temporary. As the journey proceeds, the struggle becomes a thing of the past. It is often replaced by a new set of challenges that can be overcome by the skills acquired in this process.

Set realistic goals – Know exactly what you’re trying to achieve

Just like some players, entrepreneurs sometimes set grand and lofty goals right from the outset. But it is a proven strategy for athletes to start small and take things one day at a time to reach the end-line successfully. Entrepreneurs, too, must follow this practice of setting realistic goals and working for them consistently, increasing their chances of success.

Consistency and perseverance

Along with clearly set and achievable goals, athletes work towards them consistently and perseveringly. It is the inherent nature of sports and practice that makes sportspersons competitive and, thus, successful. And this holds vital importance in the journey of aspiring business people as well. Entrepreneurs should imbibe these values of athletes right from the beginning of their entrepreneurial path to make a successful leap in their careers.

Discipline and dedication

If discipline were a book, it would be an athlete’s Bible. Even if they are not medal bearers or absolute champions, all athletes are strictly tuned to the daily schedules that they have to follow with discipline. The above two points of realistic goals and consistency are primarily driven by discipline. If one is to start a new business or learn about the business world, they must surely follow an athlete’s discipline and dedication.

Focus – Attention to detail

Every well-trained and serious player has one thing in common — an obsession with details. Players know every aspect of their sport as they all are crucial for a good performance. They maintain a rigorous training schedule and pay close attention to details as little details can make or break their performances. Entrepreneurs must also imbibe these values to capitalise on opportunities for advancement and other avenues of success and should be focused and detail-oriented.

Failure – Learn from losing

The fact of sports (and life in general) is that there are always winners and failures. All athletes know that they are not going to win all the matches and events in their life. It is what they take away from the experience of losing that finally propels them to win. Athletes turn inward and analyse their own performance, scrutinise their lapses and see their failures and missteps as possibilities for improvement.

The same is true for entrepreneurs. Losing is a temporary condition. Every day is a unique opportunity to take in new aspects, grow and succeed. True accomplishment comes when one learns from errors and grows past them.

Have grit

Indeed, the best athletes are the ones who have unique skills and talents and are the most flexible and adaptable – however, other things too separate good athletes from the great ones. The skill of grit makes a lot of difference. Grit is self-discipline accompanied by an emotional commitment to a task and a strong desire to accomplish it. To be successful, entrepreneurs must also cultivate grit, just like athletes do. They must have the ability to withstand adversity and have the grit and determination to achieve their goals.

Realising success and celebrating accomplishments

We can witness the apt comparison between business and sports in an expressive celebration of one’s success. When an athlete brings home gold, s/he is celebrated for the mega achievement, and the entire nation goes into celebration, just like Neeraj Chopra’s recent win for India. In business, too, entrepreneurs must recognise their and their employee’s success. They should find ways to cheer one another on when, say, a co-worker makes new record sales or wins a big client. Not only does this promote unity, but it also gives an incentive for others to accomplish their goals.

Parallels between an entrepreneur and Olympian Neeraj Chopra

The connections between sports and business are omnipresent. Entrepreneurs and aspiring businesspersons have been learning new teachings from sports for a long time. Whether referring to workgroups as “teams” or managers as “coaches”, sports analogies in the business world are applied everywhere.

Olympian Neeraj Chopra has been through a journey that was nothing short of a roller coaster ride. His quest began with the aim of shedding some weight as a kid; today, it has reached its summit with a historic Olympic gold in the javelin throw event. This is not to say that his journey has peaked forever. This is just the beginning. And so is every new day for entrepreneurs. They can do anything, anytime, any day – all they have to do is follow the rulebook of success and adopt an athlete’s skills to thrive and succeed in their world.

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Sports Analytics Platform Needed To Create Indian Athletes for Olympics

Shalmoli Sarkar — Sun, 01 Aug 2021 05:35:08 +0000

PT Usha, India’s lone track and field athlete to have participated in four Olympics expresses her dejection over not winning a medal at the Olympics for the country. In an interview, she said that Indians not winning an Olympic medal at the track and field event can be attributed to a lack of providing scientific training to athletes as well as being unable to identify talent from the grassroot level.

It is indeed true, ever since India made its Olympic debut in 1900, it has managed to put a dismal count of only 28 medals to date. A country, whose fraction of the young population constitutes around 35 percent of the total population pie holds a poor population to medal ratio.

With the advancement in science, technologies such as computer vision, machine learning, advanced wireless connectivity, and wearable sensors have made inroads into the sports space to become sports analytics platforms transforming the way athletes train, compete, and manage their careers while providing in-depth insights to coaches and athletes on live in-game activity and past game events. The extensive use of sports analytics platforms in an athlete’s training programme will fill the void that PT Usha was referring to.

Why does India lack a sports analytics platform for athletes?

Search for sports analytics tools that serve other than cricket, you will get few results. For a country where people worship cricket, a majority of the sports analytics tools are designed for cricket due to its popularity and India being world champions. Cricket analytics platforms like SportingMindz and Sports Mechanics are known to have given their services to IPL teams like RCB, Kings XI Punjab, KKR, and Deccan Chargers etc.

The low popularity of other sports like running, gymnastics, swimming, boxing and India’s poor performance in the Olympics forces the developers of the analytics platform to choose cricket over any other sport. Besides, the respective federations and sports bodies are equally to be blamed for their reluctance to invest in the betterment of athletes’ training, therefore there is no creation of supply and demand of sports analytics platform dedicated to athletics.

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The technology interference in the sports space has transformed the way athletes train, compete and strategise games.

Benefits of Sports Analytics Platforms

In the absence of sports analytics platforms, the assessment of an athlete’s performance is through archaic methods of reviewing the gameplays by rewinding videos of their performance looking out for mistakes or scope of improvement. Here are some of the benefits the sports analytics tools can offer:

Injury Prediction: Deep learning algorithms like convolutional neural network models will help to understand the deviation of an athlete’s posture and technique.
Strategise games for maximum wins: Data science in sports can help maximise wins by offering trusted insights on what will likely happen after each decision to extract the best performance. It can predict the strengths and weaknesses of opposition teams and devise the right strategy for the game in any situation.
Find the right player: During practice matches or selection matches, scouting for the right player is a challenge. Using machine learning techniques such as clustering and statistical analysis provides insights into a player’s skills, biometrics to identify the right player. Automated video analysis also aids in selecting the player.
Best Routines and training strategy: Best training regimes and strategies can be created by analysing previous practice matches.

What Lies Ahead for the Sports Analytics Platform in India?

The Tokyo Olympics is certainly emerging to be different than other Olympics as India has sent its largest-ever contingent of 119 athletes to compete at 85 medal events. We can witness the determined athletes advancing in their respective disciplines of boxing, shooting, badminton, sailing, table tennis, and hockey where previously they got eliminated in initial rounds. This is something to realise for sports analytics platforms that there is talent available and the right resources and technology support will further enhance the performance of athletes to win medals. The sports analytics platform will have ample business opportunities to provide its services at the grassroots level i.e., during national level or state level trials or in schools and colleges to help coaches find the best athlete.

The post Sports Analytics Platform Needed To Create Indian Athletes for Olympics appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

India: First Country to Adopt Meditation Partner For Olympics Games

Shalmoli Sarkar — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 05:35:09 +0000

The glaring need for mental wellness in sportspersons came to the forefront when four-time grand slam winner Naomi Osaka, refused to appear in French Open’s post-tennis match conference. Facing pinching questions from the media, exhausted her that made her suffer through long bouts of depression. Sachin Tendulkar, in his 24-year long cricket career, too battled with anxiety issues for 10-12 years and dealt with many sleepless nights before matches.

For the audience or spectators, this might not seem to be a big deal due to their preconceived notion that sportspersons are celebrities. For them, handling anxiety and stress should be an innate quality, but in reality, it is different.

A sportsperson’s career progression undergoes multiple ups and downs. The constant pressure of performing well and being on top takes a toll on a player’s mental wellbeing. It just takes a failure in one or two match events where people begin to criticise a player’s competence and develop a negative atmosphere driven by public-led judgments and opinions for a player’s retirement.

Considering the mental wellbeing of an athlete to be paramount before such high-voltage sporting events, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), has announced its partnership with Dhyana, a meditation-tracking start-up for the mental wellbeing of its athletes for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. With this partnership, India has become the first country to do so.

Why was this partnership with Dhyana necessary?

The Indian Olympic Association felt it was necessary to prioritise mental wellness, improve focus, productivity and help players achieve their mindfulness goals amidst the ongoing pandemic.

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A sportsperson’s career progression undergoes multiple ups and downs. The constant pressure of performing well and being on top takes a toll on a player’s mental wellbeing.

Why was Dhyana Chosen?

In 2018, the International Olympic Committee summit in Lausanne raised concerns about the importance of mental wellness in sports. India has a rich heritage of yoga and meditation and the Indian Olympic Association recognised the need for mental wellness and decided to opt for a mental wellness solution that amalgamates technology with traditional yoga and meditation. Hence, Dhyana becomes the first official device to be used at the Olympics.

How was Dhyana Chosen?

Dhyana is the brainchild of India’s badminton legend Pullela Gopichand and Oxford University alumnus Bhairav Shankar. The Indian Olympic Association has acquired Dhyana’s health management services for the entire Indian contingent.

Dhyana might have been chosen owing to the credibility of its founder Pullela Gopichand who has been a successful coach to give India, Olympic medallists like PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, and other players like Sai Praneeth and Parupalli Kashyap, winners of coveted International badminton titles.

How is Dhyana Intended to Provide Mental Wellness?

Dhyana has introduced rings, a wearable device that is capable of measuring ‘mindful minutes’, or the amount of time a person is focusing during a meditation session. The rings work by tracking a person’s Heart Rate Variability (HRV), or the gap in between two consecutive heartbeats, which is further broken down into the three fundamentals of every meditation session – the quality of breathing, focus and relaxation.

Dhyana’s rings provide bio-feedback to give a measurable and scientific way of tackling stress, increase focus and build a positive state of mind through the power of meditation.

What Lies Ahead for the Future of Mental Wellness Platforms in Sports?

Stress and anxiety are major hurdles that tend to impede a player’s performance. Mental wellness apps and devices in Indian sports are yet in their infancy in India.

But, there lies a potential market for data-driven mental wellbeing solutions which will be beneficial not only for Olympic athletes but cricket players as well. The mental wellness solutions also stand a chance to offer their services to grassroots levels of sports for players competing in national levels or state levels, this will aid young players to tackle anxiety and stress at an early stage and perform better in the future.

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