In 2013, after the game narrowly dodged an Olympic-sized snub, a determined International Hockey Federation (FIH) instantly turned in direction of India for assist – and to assist.
Eight years later, each are smiling – for India, the performances of the lads’s and girls’s groups on the Tokyo Olympics may very well be the springboard for future success; for the FIH, it might probably be a turning level financially, or so that they hope. And hockey, which just about bought dropped from the Tokyo Olympics, could nicely have secured its spot in future Games.
“There is far more attention on hockey now in India. And that is good for international hockey, good for the FIH,” the world physique’s chief govt Thierry Weil says.
Back in 2013, the temper in India and the world wasn’t so optimistic. In February that yr, six months after the London Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reviewed all 26 sports activities on its programme again then based mostly on 39 standards together with reputation, TV scores and ticket gross sales. The function of the train was to take away the sports activities that carried out worst on these counts from the Tokyo Olympics. Hockey nearly survived that check.
In an instantaneous, Leandro Negre, a Spanish hockey Olympian who was FIH president on the time, appeared to India. “India is very important in keeping world hockey alive,” Negre had mentioned a day after the IOC vote in 2013.
But Indian hockey itself was dormant and slipping into oblivion throughout that interval – the crew had completed twelfth out of 12 groups in London, and was ranked so low that it couldn’t make the reduce for some marquee worldwide competitions.
The cash-strapped FIH and a struggling India entered into what was seen as a wedding of comfort. Smelling the industrial potential, the FIH took a step that’s uncommon in any worldwide sport: organise one main event in a single nation annually. Not simply that, guidelines had been tweaked in some instances to accommodate India in necessary worldwide tournaments.
This manner, India bought an opportunity to play with the world’s greatest groups yearly, one thing they’d been yearning for. The crew improved yr on yr, received the junior males’s World Cup in 2016 and among the gamers from that crew turned the heroes of the bronze-medal successful facet in Tokyo.
In the boardroom
As India’s efficiency improved, so did its affect on the executive and industrial sides. Today, half of FIH’s sponsors are Indian corporations and its president can be from India – Narinder Batra. But regardless of the Indian hockey crew making speedy strides, the world physique discovered it robust to maximise its revenues. In January this yr, it was reported that the FIH made a lack of $715,000 in 2019.
Weil hopes the performances of Indian groups will assist them “sign one or two commercial contracts.”
“(With) the increase of attractiveness of hockey in India, I am sure we will have more talks with companies for sponsorship,” Weil, a former FIFA advertising director, says.
“The performance of the Indian team (in Tokyo) means more people will play, which works well for us. A lot of TV ratings, too… in Germany, it was the highest for hockey games, which we are not used to. That shows the potential of hockey and we can attract more international brands,” Weil provides.
TV scores will grow to be essential when a evaluation for the Tokyo Olympics is performed given that each one occasions had been held with out spectators resulting from Covid-19 protocols. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, hockey struggled to fill stands and most matches had been performed in half-empty stadiums. But in Tokyo, hockey appears to have garnered a very good viewers.
In Belgium, the gold medal match between the eventual champions and Australia was watched by 266,000 folks, the second-most after heptathlon gold medallist Nafissatou Thiam’s occasion on August 5, which bought 287,000 viewers in line with Hockey Belgium. In Germany, Weil says native media reported that the match between them and the Netherlands had probably the most viewers on TV throughout all sports activities involving the nation’s athletes.
“The TV ratings would be high in India, too, of course. I am sure our ratings are much better than previous Olympics. Maybe at the end of the year, we will be able to make comparisons (to previous editions),” Weil says.
Cash cow
In Europe, extra eyeballs haven’t immediately led to extra income technology, which suggests the FIH retains coming again to India with its big-ticket occasions. India has hosted two out of the final three males’s World Cups and can as soon as once more conduct FIH’s flagship event in 2023. Belgium, the world and Olympic champions, too had provided to host the 2023 World Cup however it’s learnt that India promised the FIH 3.5 million Swiss Francs as ‘guaranteed profit’ from the occasion, 1.5 million greater than Belgium.
Weil says they wish to be ‘careful’ that they don’t come to India with ‘everything’ and ‘people do not take interest anymore’. Instead, he says the FIH now hopes to boost the usual of groups like ‘South Korea, Japan, South Africa and others’ by way of its new event, the Nations Cup.
“In the last couple of years, there was too much monopoly in the high (ranked) teams. It will be good for hockey if we start to mix it up and get teams like Japan, South Africa, South Korea and others to compete for podium places at the Olympics like India has,” Weil says.
At least, Weil received’t should combat a number of fires. There was growing hypothesis that the FIH and IOC had been eager to make five-a-side hockey an Olympic sport. But with a bronze medal and a fourth-place end, it’s hoped that the IOC, which is seen attempting to courtroom the enormous Indian market, will preserve the 11-a-side format intact, given the present curiosity ranges within the nation.
“The popularity of hockey has increased with this. I think that FIH is really happy about what happened, because I don’t think we have to worry about our Olympic status for the following years,” former India ladies’s crew coach Sjoerd Marijne had mentioned in an Indian Express Idea Exchange final month.
It’s nearly like the game has come full circle since 2013. And Weil, too, doesn’t play down the importance of India’s efficiency vis-à-vis the well being of world hockey. “If it’s good for India, it’s good for the FIH.”