VIDEO: SportsMeet discussion on East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan fiasco

The seventh edition of the SportsMeet in Bangalore had 'Disrupted Derby, A Verdict, and the Beautiful Game' as its topic on Saturday, January 19: Here the video on the discussion on the verdict of the East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan fiasco which included ex-footballers Raman Vijayan and Noel Wilson plus journalist S.S. Shreekumar.

SportsMeet-Bangalore, October Edition on October 13!

The fifth edition of the SportsMeet in Bangalore has Sports Journalism as its topic and it will be held from 2 pm onwards on Saturday, October 13 at the Central Block, 3rd Floor, Christ University on Hosur Road, Bangalore.

SportsMeet - Bangalore is a platform where the sports professionals (athletes, coaches, physios, managers, and so on), sports business, sport enthusiast, and sports management aspirants network, discuss, and collaborate.

SportsMeet is ideal for companies who run their business on Sports – developing grassroot athletes to providing sport infrastructure to schools or managing athletes, looking for a consortium of sorts where they can network, integrate, interact.

The main event will be followed by networking and snack party.


Here the Agenda

14:00 - 14:30: Registration and Networking
14:30 - 14:45: Demo from Game On Sports Management (Roots Sports) – A Sports Management company, organizing and promoting Sports
14:45 - 15:30: Evolution of Sports Journalism – Kalyan Ashok, Senior Sports Editor at the Hindu
15:30 - 15:45: Demo from SportsKeeda.com – website, largest sports writers network
15:45 - 16:00: Demo from One Thousand Hockey Legs – An NGO promoting Field Hockey at the grass root level
16:00 - 16:30: Snacks and Networking


Those interested to attend the SportsMeet on Saturday please contact Subhajyoti Banerjee (9008299122). There is a registration fee of Rs 100 for the event.

SportsMeet-Bangalore, September Edition on Giving back to Sports!

The September edition of SportsMeet - Bangalore witnessed intriguing talks by Arjuna awardee Reeth Abraham, representatives from EduSports, b'Twin - Decathlon, and The Fans of Hockey.

Winner of several medals in both national and international level, athlete Reeth Abraham, ventured into the main agenda of this edition - Giving back to Sports. She, very articulately explained the need of former sportsperson or people with proper knowledge and experience of sports to occupy important positions in the sports organizations. She went on to explain that due to several reasons, this has not been the case in India. Some of these reasons stem from the fact that majority of Indian sportsmen were ‘created' from poor or rural background as they saw sports as an opportunity to get a government job and now due to their lack of education and exposure, they hesitate to get into administration jobs.

Reeth is a part of Clean Sports India movement, which aims to create an environment wherein former sportsperson can manage local level clubs, state level associations and national level federations. She emphasized on the fact that most of the bureaucrats and politicians who run sports bodies generally tend to have very limited knowledge of sports and often turn out to be corrupt. Clean Sports India comes as a unique forum where all Indian sportsperson can come together and raise their voice.

Reeth added that one needs to have passion for sports and not necessarily be a top level sportsperson to contribute for the development of sports in our country. She also talked about inculcating a sporting culture in India, making physical exercise a habit; a way to keep us fit.

Earlier, the event was started by Dr. Gautam Mukherjee, from EduSports, a company which aims to provide a more holistic education by involving school students into physical education in a more structured and planned way. The basic mantra of the company is to make sports and Physical Education (PE) accessible to all kids, not necessarily to make them champions in sports, but rather to make them champions in life. He explained how sports not only keeps the body fit, but also imbibes lessons of life like leadership, teamwork, and so on.

The current physical education programs in schools are inadequate to provide opportunities for all kids and lack the systematic assessment tools like in the case of other subjects. The focus is on developing champions and medal winners, which sidelines non-exceptional but interested kids. EduSports' curriculum makes sure that any kid who is interested in participation can participate. Furthermore, he emphasized that assessment of PE teachers should not only be on how many champions they have produced but also on how many kids have they been able to involve into sports. With more involvement into sports we can hope to have a fitter and healthier generation.

21 year old Rachan Singh gave a very energetic talk about the wide array of cycle services from brand b'Twin and the other range of products available in Decathlon. Given that Bangalore has now become a cycling hub and interest in cycling is growing, he focused his talk mainly on cycling and showed variety of cycles provided by them. The main advantage of Decathlon is that they recommend the products based on need and purpose, furthermore, one can try and test them first and only then proceed to buy. He also mentioned about the opportunities of working in Decathlon, where passion for sports is the chief criteria, certificates hardly matter.

The last talk was by Manoj Mahala who runs a hockey fan website, thefansofhockey.com. Manoj, a research student, with help of friends and well-wishers has developed this website, which not only provides news of Indian hockey events but also directly covers some of the hockey events. He told about his website and how the current form of the website has evolved from its initial humble beginnings. Also, The Fans of Hockey provides a huge collection of fantastic photographs, some of which he displayed during his presentation.

In between the talks, SportsMeet's Naveen Ningaiah, kept on chipping in with interesting and useful information about the speakers as well as some of the happenings around. He introduced run Arun run, a unique ultra-distance running initiative by 43 year old Arun Bhradwaj, ( http://www.facebook.com/runarunrun ) aiming to run from Kargil to Kanyakumari in 60 days, starting from October 1 2012.

SportsMeet also compiled a presentation on job opportunities in sports, aiming to benefit some section of the audience. After the talks, the networking session commenced over tea and snacks.

SportsMeet-Bangalore, September Edition on September 15!

The fourth edition of the SportsMeet in Bangalore will be held from 2 pm onwards on Saturday, September 15 at the Central Block, 3rd Floor, Christ University on Hosur Road, Bangalore. The aim of SportsMeet - Bangalore is to promote and learn about Indian Sports at an informal monthly gathering for sports professionals, sports businesses, and students aspiring for a career in sports.

This time Arjuna awardee and international athlete Reeth Abraham will be the main speaker. Reeth would share her experience on exploring various ways of giving back to sports. Also the organisers have lined-up several sports entrepreneurs, managers, and passionate folks in this session, which should definitely engage all the sport enthusiasts which will include Demo sessions from Edusports – providing holistic education through sports, Bangalore Youth Football League and The Fans of Hockey.

The main event will be followed by networking and snack party.


Here the Agenda

14:00 - 14:30: Registration and Networking
14:30 - 14:45: Demo from EduSports – providing holistic education through sports
14:45 - 15:30: Giving back to Sports – Reeth Abraham, International Athlete, Arjuna Awardee
15:30 - 15:45: Demo from Bangalore Youth Football League – by Adhip Bandari
15:45 - 16:00: Demo from The Fans of Hockey – by Manoj Mahala
16:00 - 16:30: Snacks and Networking


Those interested to attend the SportsMeet on Saturday please contact Subhajyoti Banerjee (9008299122).

SportsMeet-Bangalore, August Edition a success

The third edition of SportsMeet - Bangalore was the most engaging and attended edition so far. The SportsMeet August event of How to kick-start your sports venture attracted a number of entrepreneurs, management students and sports enthusiasts.

Vishal Gupta used his venture Sports365 as a model to give the audience an insight about How to kick start your sports venture. With a vision of building and fostering the spirit of sports and fitness activities in the country, Sports365 aims in making sports viable and sustainable for the masses. As an e-commerce venture for sports equipments, consumables and infrastructure, Vishal Gupta started Sports365 along with Tennis maestro Mahesh Bhupathi as Director and Chandra Sekhar Reddy. However, with time they also went also started offline marketing. One of their specialties includes 'consultative selling' where the products are provided to the consumer after a discussion on their requirements. Sports365 is aiming high with a long term goal of providing a support system for young and unknown talents and roping in some popular sporting figures in the company.

Earlier, the event kickstarted with TENVIC representative Shruti Venkat. TENVIC, co-founded in 2011 by legendary cricketer Anil Kumble, strategist and entrepreneur Dinesh Kumble, and international Table-tennis player Vasanth Bharadwaj, with a vision to develop a sporting ecosystem and culture in India, whereby every Indian is involved in sports.

They have initiated work at multiple levels
- Grassroot: reaching out and training young talents in schools
- Lessons from Sports: using the knowledge gained from sportsmen to train people of other professions
- Sports branding: finding new avenues to reach customers and brand sportsmen and Sports retail

At the moment they have focused on Cricket, Table-tennis, Chess and Badminton. At grassroot level, they have been able to start programs in various schools, mainly in Southern India and the National Capital Region. The programs contents are created by reputed players for each disciplines and kids who have shown promise are given opportunities of intensive training with their coaches to take their talent to the next level.

They have also used the experience of sportsmen in areas like 'pressure handling' and conducted training programs for people of different professions. TENVIC harbors in-house coaches, mentors and psychologists for their programs.

The talks moved into the highly interesting and much lesser known area of Barefoot running. Sharath Raju spoke about his venture HighLine, which specializes not only in providing footwear for barefoot running but also training sessions.

Sharath explained, briefly, about the biology and mechanics involved in jogging and running and how the traditional shoes are inadequate to cater a healthy and injury free way of doing so. They also maintain Vivobarefoot training clinic, which trains the consumers on the correct and injury free ways of barefoot running.

This presentation along with Vishal Gupta's talk also showed how online marketing has really grown successfully in India.

The talks ended with a presentation on Sportz Divas, an initiative by Anuradha. Sportz Divas aims to promote the achievements of Women athletes in India. Anuradha herself is a national-level gymnast and the only Indian woman to have participated in the Fitness Championships in Las Vegas. Also, she has a sports management degree from Switzerland. And apart from that, interestingly, she is a dentist!

Anuradha made a point about how most sportswomen in India come from a rural and poor background, thus unable to promote themselves. Many women athletes, despite winning medals in national and international competitions are struggling economically. Sportz Divas reaches out such women athletes and tries to formulate ways to promote them and discover their brand value.

The event ended with the networking session, where the participants discussed different matters and collaborations with the speakers over coffee and snacks. Interestingly, some of the participants were from outside of Bangalore. Overall the event was a success and organizers are happy that SportsMeet is catching up fast with more and more people showing interest.

SportsMeet-Bangalore, August Edition on August 18!

The third edition of the SportsMeet in Bangalore will be held from 3.30 pm onwards on Saturday, August 18 at the Central Block, 3rd Floor, Christ University on Hosur Road, Bangalore. The aim of SportsMeet is to promote and learn about Indian Sports at an informal monthly gathering for sports professionals, sports businesses, and students aspiring for a career in sports.

The organisers have several sports management and entrepreneurs lined-up for the event this month. This should definitely excite the business management students, enthusiast professionals who are keen to make sports as a career, and off-course the sports lovers who are eager to know the other aspects of sports.

For the event on August 18, the have lined up several sports management and entrepreneurs - Demo sessions from Tenvic Sports, an initiative by Anil Kumble; High Line Retail, one-of-a-kind destination for Athletic & Lifestyle upgrades; Sportz Divas, a sports company supporting sportswomen; and a talk on how to Kick start your Sports venture from Vishal, co-founder at sports365.in .


Here the Agenda

15:30 - 16:00: Registration and Networking
16:00 - 16:20: Demo from Tenvic Sports – an initiative by Anil Kumble
16:20 - 16:50: Kick start your Sports venture – Vishal Gupta, CEO & Co-founder at sports365.in
16:50 - 17:15: Demo from High Line Retail (Vivo Barefoot Brand) – one-of-a-kind destination for Athletic & Lifestyle upgrades
17:15 - 17:30: Demo from Sportz Divas – a sports company supporting sportswomen
17:30 - 18:00: Networking


Those interested to attend the SportsMeet on Saturday please contact Subhajyoti Banerjee (9008299122) or Naveen Ningaiah (9611240132).

SportsMeet - Bangalore: Engaging, educative, and interactive

The second event of SportsMeet - Bangalore turned out to be an engaging, educative, and interactive affair. In the Christ College venue, many athletes, students, sports-related professionals came to network with the reach of SportsMeet grew stronger.

Chitra Gangadharan, a former goalkeeper of the Indian Women's football team, who has been a captain and has represented the 1977-78 Asian All Star team gave insights of how sports is an important factor of women's development.

Chitra mentioned that apart from the general benefits of fitness, sports help women gain in confidence, equality, and outer world exposure which is lacking in large sections of our society. Her talk touched upon various factors from social outlook to government bias towards women.

Chitra's good humoured talk contained many real life anecdotes from her playing and coaching experiences which made it more engaging. Also, she emphasized that not only th government but corporates need to support women athletes if we want see women take-up sports seriously and respectfully.

Earlier, the event started with a demonstration by Abhishek Srinivas of Krossover, a New York-based company who specialize in developing tools for sports analytics with emphasis on extracting statistics from match videos.

Two time IRONMAN Dipankar Paul shared his experience of the world’s best known Triathlon events (http://ironman.com/). Dipankar's inspirational achievements awed the audience when he described his exploits of an event which requires 3.4km of swimming, followed by 180 km Biking and ends with 42 km of running. The achievements look impressive as Dipankar is not a professional athlete and started cycling and swimming few years earlier, with a proper training only 15 days before the event.

Sudhir Menon, the Editor-in-Chief of the new sports magazine Scoreline, introduced the magazine to the audience, explaining his motivation of starting a sports magazine in India. Influenced by the sports coverage culture of Italy, where magazines and newspapers dedicated only to sports are staple for everyday life, he would one day like to see the same in India too and Scoreline is just a beginning.

The talks finished with a candid and poignant account of the struggle faced by physically challenged sportsmen in India. Vijay Kant Tiwari, a member of Indian cricket team for physically challenged, which toured in Pakistan talked about his experience of touring Pakistan and the lack of support for cricketers like him in the country.

Vijay's Pakistan tour had been an amazing experience where he had been thoroughly impressed by the warm welcome of the host nation. His experiences back home, however, are far from impressive. Even after his triumphant Pakistan tour, the team had been neglected by large sections of the Indian media and the team remains unknown to masses. Vijay ended his talk by saying that at the moment physically challenged cricketers need support rather than sympathy.

After the talks, the participants interacted during the networking sessions which went on for quite sometime, giving a platform for meeting of minds and new proposals and opportunities.

SportsMeet-Bangalore, July Edition: Chitra Gangadharan (ex-Footballer)

A guest and speaker for the July edition of SportsMeet-Bangalore will be Chitra Gangadharan, a former Indian national football women's team captain, an Asian All-Star Player, and also a National Coach.

In the country of Cricket and IPL, seldom a sportswoman gets internationally recognized barring a few like P.T. Usha and Saina Nehwal. The chance is more bleak in the case of the poor man's game football. Amidst all this, Chitra has carved a niche for herself in the sports arena.

Chitra became a footballer by mere accident. She represented Karnataka in the Women's National Football championship at Lucknow in 1975 and since then she carried on representing country and state for almost a decade.

Chitra if fully committed to football – right from completing a Diploma course from the National Institute of Sports, holds an 'A' license and Goalkeeper coaching course from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), as a qualified referee to coaching several youth development teams, state senior Women's team, and senior Women's national team.

Her association with SAI, Bangalore has been for many years and currently she also coaches an 'A' Division team.

On Saturday, July 21 at the Christ University at the SportsMeet-Bangalore, Chitra Gangadharan will be connecting with us on the significance and ways to encourage women in participating in Sports in India and how the talented sportswomen loving the game yet failing to sustain it at the highest level.

Ensure you register for this event under

Blog: http://sportsmeet.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SportsMeet

Inaugural SportsMeet - Bangalore a success!

The initial endeavour of SportsMeet - Bangalore truly lived up to the expectations - the conference room in Christ University was thronged by the sports enthusiast from across the city. Right from management students, professors, entrepreneurs & sport entrepreneurs, employee/employer of sport institutes, athletic coaches, and several sports fanatics came to the venue to listen to the Olympics experience from hockey stalwarts Jude Felix and Arjun Halappa.

The event started with presentation from Switch Hit Sports, a sports management company providing a professional platform for sports and sports persons to flourish by encouraging grassroot level sports. The impressive talk touch-based areas like managing sports personalities in India, future targets in sports management, and more.

Jude Felix, a two-time Olympian (1988, 1992), stressed to have an 'Olympian-tag' and how lucky he had been to represent his country in Olympics. He has seen from close quarters, when some of his colleagues missing the Olympics bus by untimely injuries. Also highlighted the pain that he (and his team) went through after losing to England and eventually losing out on semi-final berth in 1988.

The 1992 Olympics happened to be filled with bitter-sweet memories. India had an exceptional build-up to the main event and they remained unbeaten in several matches. The whole world started talking about India's resurgence in field hockey and suddenly India became a medal contender. However, looked like India 'peaked' a little early, lost crucial matches, and ended their campaign in seventh position.

Jude expressed his displeasure about the current hockey governance and predicted a top 6 finish at London 2012.

It was now turn for the 2004 Olympian, the proud Kodava, midfield maestro, Arjun Halappa, who emphasized on a tough preparatory camp in the US. This was followed by some controversial moments in the National team – exclusion of two key players from the team and hiring a new coach. Halappa took us through an anxious moment in a crucial match against Australia, where miscommunication from team members buried India's hope to making to the semis.

The Olympic village experience invoked the lighter side of the event, when Jude posed for a picture with glamour tennis queen Gabriela Sabatini or Arjun looked juxtaposed while taking a picture with tennis star Andy Roddick.

The social responsibility side of the event showcased a couple of organizations - PACE Scholarships from GoSports Foundation meant for the talented athletes from Olympic and Paraolympic disciplines and Jude Felix Hockey Academy (JFHA), a non-profit organization and registered charitable trust, working towards promoting hockey among the under-privileged children.

The event concluded with a networking session, organizers, giving a great platform to the participants, presenters, and even themselves to network.