AITA News .....

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Varma
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by Varma »

prasen9 wrote:I am imagining Varma beating up Khanna (it rhymes, doesn't it?). I think I found one (Varma on the right).
Anyone with a better image, please post.
I would have loved to see the picture of the ending, not just the beginning :p

- Varma
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Post by Atithee »

Why are these things important to us as a nation? Why do we have to be counted among world class sports nations? Is our image taking that much additional beating just because we don't have many world class sports results? For example, what difference will it make if we move up to world tennis group again to be beaten to a Khannesque pulp again? Doesn't that make us even more embarrassed because in those WG countries, tennis results are at least noticed.

To illustrate my point better, does the world think better of Kenya because they have world class long distance runners or Jamaica because they have world class sprinters or Egypt because they have world class squash players? Do we admire, say Serbia more because it has world class tennis players? Even Russia, who wins quite a few Olympic medals? Are Scandinavian countries admired more only because they are also good at winter sports? Conversely, will we think any less of Sweden or Finland if they didn't win many Olympic medals? I don't think so.

So, why this fuss and Olympic quest and podium target type of organizations? Is our money, as small as it may be (and we are talking crores here), worth spending on these feel good type of goals? Why not spend it on a targeted women coding program, a robotics program, an entrepreneurial fund with single minded goal such as an iPhone or another revolutionary product? Even if we claim that there are existing efforts for these, obviously they haven't produced results. So, why not direct more funds to these efforts?

In summary, why do we need to become a world class sports nation? It can happen 100 years from now when we are world class industrial or economic nation. There's no hurry. In fact, as I have posited earlier several times, once we become a world class economic nation, with per capital income approaching, say $20-30K, we will automatically see world class sports results. Let's stop chasing a completely unnecessary goal in the big scheme of things and focus on what really matters today. Let's call it nation building first. World class sports result are a by product not necessarily means toward this goal.
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Post by prasen9 »

Ask and thou shalt receive. This is Varma after his victory. But, he has had some collateral damage. He is happy to do it for the country's sake, though.Image
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Post by prasen9 »

Atithee, I agree with you. But, any additional money should go towards girls' basic education. We have enough coders, entrepreneurs, robotics programs, etc. While we could always have more, I think the ROI is the best when you invest in girls' education. Investing in basic research (esp. related to health) may also be quite useful.
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Post by Ram »

prasen9 wrote:The AITA can do much better and raise more money. But, raising money is not an easy job. And even if you raise the money, raising a champion is not an easy job as Karti found out with Ramkumar.
I have a totally divergent view to Karti. The support needs to be more broadbased and at grass root level. Gambling on just a few who would have anyway got the support with their prodigious talent doesnt entitle you of "raising a champion". RamK never played his age group from Under 10 since he was always 3-4 years ahead of boys of his age in terms of tennis skills. With the great support businessmen of his community give tennis players, it would have been as easy as Purav Raja's put away at the net. Tough part would be to broad base the support like Purav's mid section. Dumping youngsters after a few losses after making them dream big, is pathetic. Half hearted efforts like Purav's overheads ends up spoiling the future of naive youngsters.

BTW Purav has won so many hearts of Chennaites that in the last one week kids keep talking about him in the academy I go to drop my child. Tremendously talented guy!
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Post by PKBasu »

Atithee, you are asking legitimate questions, but those are the wrong questions for this forum -- which is devoted to Indian sports (and particularly tennis). If there was no intrinsic purpose/good from playing and succeeding in tennis, there would be no reason for this forum. I posit that there very much is. As a regular tennis player, I know the benefits of playing the sport -- and would encourage its spread.
We may all be damn fools for loving the sport so much, but three cheers for more damn fools like us -- here.
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Post by vatsal323 »

@atithee - Just imagine the sense of pride you would feel when an Indian wins a Grand Slam in singles. And obviously it helps the country. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Serbia is Novak Djokovic. Leave that, when I think of Tunisia, the only thing that comes to my mind is Malek Jaziri. Sport is powerful!
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Post by sameerph »

And Atithee India's spending on sports in really miniscule compared to most of the other nations who are not even as developed as us. I have not dug out statistics but for start this article sums up the spending by India -

Wondering why India doesn't win medals at Olympics? It spends only 3 paise per athlete each day

And you do want to increase even by a little more ?
Atithee wrote: For example, what difference will it make if we move up to world tennis group again to be beaten to a Khannesque pulp again? Doesn't that make us even more embarrassed because in those WG countries, tennis results are at least noticed.
That is a strange logic too. Because we are likely to get thrashed in the world group, we should not even try to qualify ?

Some of your points are valid but as PKB said this is a forum full of sports crazy fans and therefore, all of us observing our players across the world is meaningless if winning or losing does not matter to us at all.
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Post by prasen9 »

The debate about whether there should be public investment in sports is an interesting one. I understand that the U.S. and India are at different stages of their development, but, the same questions could be asked of the U.S. when our bridges are falling down, roads tattered, public schools scrounging for money to pay the teachers, and tons of uninsured people. Here are some pointers which may inform us with respect to this decision.

An article by Brookings on the economics of public financing of stadiums
A study on the ROI of sports grants in Florida

The latter puts the return on investment at 2.5 most of it coming from the FSF grant program. The ROI on research and development in a broad study I saw was pegged around 2.2 and I think construction was the next best with a high return. Generally, if there is a ROI of near 2, then we should do it. The only concern then becomes time and effort. All this is of course assuming that these calculations are sound. So, the issue is not so cut and dry. If the ROI is over 1, then a case can certainly be made to do both and not one.

I am not an expert on the economics of sports. Maybe PKB or someone else has seen better studies/information sources. I will defer to them.

Maybe a better question to ask is not whether sports should be funded. But, what should be supported in the sporting arena. The same should be true for girls' education, health, etc.
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Post by arjun2761 »

With respect to public investment in sports versus other development programs, the debate is a good one. Presumably, the money not spent on sports will go to a development program that improves the public good (other than the part that is subject to pernicious impact of corruption in India).

However, with respect to private investment, Atithee's points are certainly debatable in the real world. It appears to be a rehash of the socialism/communism vs. capitalism type argument which for most folks has already been settled in one direction. For example, the funds with AITA could raise from the private sector is quite unlikely to directly go to public development but would likely go to other corporate or business uses or simply be invested in property or overseas. So, the debate is really whether it is a good corporate or business investment for a business or corporation to support sports and the answer on that isn't as clear.

With respect to promoting national sporting success (which raising a tennis champion would be), I believe there are several benefits to nation building which result. (1) It improves the image of the country not only among those outside the country, it improves the confidence of the people of the country that they can compete with the best. The increased national confidence likely has significant productivity impact (although I have done any searches to see if anyone has any research on it). (2) Success of the national teams likely encourages younger folks and other to be more active and participate in sports or physical activities themselves. This has probably pretty large benefits to improved national health and consequent productivity. In part, the current PM's cleanliness campaign is also based on a similar principle that a cleaner India would result in a healthier India which would then be a more productive India. An advertisement in my local area (in the US) routinely touts that boys and girls that regularly play a sport are far less likely to experiment with drugs and alcohol etc. (although I suspect this isn't as much of an issue in a poorer country like India). (3) Finally, sports as a business can also give rise to jobs and GDP growth (for example, through IPL etc.). Again, not saying that private money could not be spent in other business areas which have better GDP impact but then again this could also be money which simply goes to less productive uses.
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Post by Atithee »

Thank you for sharing your views. I'm listening.
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Post by Sin Hombre »

To answer the guest's question, there are 2 major reasons why investment in sports is worth it.

1. India is an extremely unfit nation and at the verge of a major health crisis in the coming years and decades. There is no way our healthcare system will be able to handle it. Even if 5% of our population is inspired by sports to make a conscious decision to change lifestyles, that will translate to billions of dollars in savings in our GDP.

2. Sports are a major part of the GDP for any large sized economy. In the US, about 0.3% of the employed force is directly in sports and it generates $14b in annual earnings. And this is just direct numbers. The PL earns a billion pounds in foreign tv rights alone and this is ignoring the impact on local tourism and media, who are both extremely dependent on football. Having a popular league system is well worth it. In fact, if it was up to me, I would open up the IPL to Pakistani players just to reap more money in tv rights.

http://www.economicmodeling.com/2013/07 ... s-economy/
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Post by prasen9 »

And, to counter the appeal and market share of the Big Bash, etc., the IPL should become the global league. As in the NBA, drop any quotas for Indian players. These quotas do diddly squat anyway except to inflate the prices paid to players who are reaching their last legs such as Yuvraj, Gambhir, etc.
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Post by sameerph »

Any hopes for major change in the administration of AITA are crushed by this news -

Praveen Mahajan Elected Unopposed All India Tennis Association President

Anil Khanna remains as one of life time president. I think he will call the shots from behind the scenes.
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Post by VReddy »

On another note, AITA has announced partnership with Zeven now. These behind the scene dynamics are very interesting in Tennis :p
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