Inside Nike’s second innings in India
Within six days, Nike returned to Indian cricket and launched its first running shoe designed for India. Much of the comeback is being built outside Nike India, a loss-making wholesaler.
Latest
How to sell the ISL in 124 days
With two teams gone and no guaranteed rights fee, the clubs put every match on YouTube.
The IPL’s coming $5 billion squeeze
Media Partners Asia expects a 94-match IPL to fetch Rs 48,500 crore, flat overall and 13% lower per match. One credible buyer leaves the BCCI bargaining over everything beyond the cheque.
The Rs 1,500 crore prompt: How Google and OpenAI bought into Indian cricket
As gaming money receded, Google and OpenAI turned to cricket with rights, partnerships, and media packages valued at nearly Rs 1,500 crore. Both want their products to become the first place Indians turn to when a question comes to mind.
JSW Inspire and the business behind India’s other blue
Since 2022, JSW Inspire has dressed India at multi-sport Games, using the IOA’s apparel rights to build a sportswear business within an Olympic sponsorship market that had no organised commercial structure a decade ago.
Why India’s world champions are headed to a ramen town
India’s one-off T20 against Japan, played on a former school field, precedes the men’s Asian Games campaign and opens the countries’ 75th-anniversary celebrations. The match carries a commercial aim as Indian cricket looks abroad for growth.
Pro Kabaddi’s next raid is for growth
For a decade, the Pro Kabaddi League taught India to watch. The next five years will test whether that attention can become a business.
The BCCI’s Ouroboros economy
Indian cricket has never looked richer. The money now gathers around the properties that draw time and value away from bilateral cricket.
The underwear made for India’s sporting itch
Coimbatore-based TRYB is building men’s sports innerwear without patents or a pitch deck. It is asking men to spend on a discomfort they have mostly learned to keep private.
Factory reset: How Agilitas is building sportswear backwards
After turning Puma into India’s biggest sportswear business, Abhishek Ganguly is trying to build a sportswear company from the factory floor up, bringing manufacturing, licensed labels, owned brands, and retail into one company.
Jamshedpur FC: The club Tata built, and walked away from
Tata Steel spent Rs 321 crore and nine years building Indian football’s most credible club. Jamshedpur FC’s nine-year run ended on an unpaid invoice of Rs 55 lakh.
The Sweat Thesis
For a decade, Cult.fit has argued that the gym that actually makes people sweat is the one that makes money. The IPO is the first public test of that argument.
Reportage
‘Why not us?’ Inside the making and remaking of Virat Kohli’s One8
Once just another name on a Puma tag, One8 is now Virat Kohli’s equity bet with Agilitas’ Abhishek Ganguly: a homegrown sportswear label that aims to compete with the logos Indian kids grew up chasing.
Reportage
The league that lifted Indian volleyball
While the national body cycled through suspensions, a privately run league built the pipeline that powered India’s bronze at the AVC Cup.
Interviews
Inside the ICC’s bet on women’s cricket
Ten years of work have lifted women’s cricket to record crowds and viewing hours. The business is still being priced in.
Reportage
Passported out
India spent 18 years turning away footballers who wanted to play for it. A proposal now with the Prime Minister’s Office would reopen the door, if New Delhi and FIFA can agree on what nationality means.
Reportage
The new turf war: How District Play is taking over India's courts
As urban Indians swap café catch-ups for floodlit courts, a small market for paid play is starting to matter. Eternal’s District is trying to own the booking sheet before anyone else can.
Analysis
Eight years of FIFA, one last bet for Zee
A promoter family capped below 4%, a billion-dollar claim in London, a shrinking core business, and an eight-year promise to world football’s governing body. Zee’s FIFA deal reads less like a sports play than a final, high-risk wager on whatever leverage it still retains.
Reportage
What Genius Sports really wants from Indian football
Why Genius Sports, a NYSE-listed B2B sports data and technology firm, has bid Rs 2,129 crore for the Indian Super League—a competition it cannot legally monetise in India. The mystery is what exactly it’s buying.
Reportage
Cricket’s banker: How A&W came to price the IPL
A&W Capital is registered in London, operates from Mumbai and is expanding to New York. Since 2021, it has advised on nearly every major cricket transaction. You have probably not heard of it. That, very much, is the point.
Reportage
From S Tendehar to the ICC: Cricket’s 43-year hunt for a game of its own
For nearly four decades, cricket has chased a digital mirror worthy of its devotion. Time and again, it has come close, only to misplace the moment. Now, the ICC believes it has finally assembled the pieces. Turning those pieces into one complete game will be harder.
Reportage
The Rajasthan Royals sale: five weeks, and a new offer
Last month, word circulated that a consortium led by Kal Somani had secured the Rajasthan Royals for $1.63 billion. No party to the transaction has confirmed it. The lead bidder is still assembling capital, even as a rival consortium submitted a binding offer.
Reportage
The money behind the money: How the $1.78 billion RCB deal is being financed
Three weeks after Diageo agreed to sell Royal Challengers Bengaluru for $1.78 billion, the consortium buying it is still raising the funds part of the money. The State of Play reveals how, and who is being asked to write the cheques.
Analysis
The World Cup India will not see, until it does
Nine weeks before kick-off, as the world readies itself for its grandest sporting ritual, India’s screens stay blank. Between what FIFA wants and what this market will pay, the gap has exposed how sharply the economics of sports broadcasting have changed.