Beijing Olympics - A Look Back

India will remember the Beijing edition of Olympics for years to come. Firstly, she never had before so many individual medals in any single edition. Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra clinched a gold in rifle shooting, her wrestler Sushil Kumar bagged a bronze and now boxer Vijender Kumar has a chance to create history by winning in semifinals of 75 kg boxing. He has anyway secured a bronze in semis itself.

We could never have believed such a run in Olympics before the event kicked off in Beijing. Generally the headlines in Indian newspapers are enough demoralizing, e.g. in an Indian daily a headline can easily read ‘Won Olympics Gold. Now What?’ – sounding ‘Won Olympics Gold. So what?’ or when 20-something Saina Nehwal loses out after showing a promising run in Badminton, newspapers here still say that she ‘disappointed’ Indians.

Beijing games will also mean a lot to the world. Firstly, it assured China a deserved entry on world stage as a serious superpower contender. World watched the opening event extravaganza with awe. Security concerns, doubts about China’s ability to host such an event all melted away when the game set rolling.

These were also the first games in era of Social Web. The reach of events was enormous with people having choice of platform to watch the event. Although nothing like an Internet Meltdown happened due to games.

Most important thing that happened at Beijing was about sports. Usain Bolt & Michael Phelps happened to Olympics at Beijing. Usain’s super-human runs in 100 m and 200 m sprints, his world records in both events indicate that here is a true Olympic ambassador – after Carl Lewis retired, there was nobody really speaking. Jamaican sprinters are a new superpower on bloc and Jamaica is already past this edition setting eyes on 2012 London Olympics! Read this news in Jamaica Observer.

Michael Phelps also rocked the world with his record equaling haul of 8 golds. He is a sports hero who will inspire many a generations. [Interesting link - read this article in WSJ which talks about an interesting aspect of swimming championship – Touching the Wall.]

It will be interesting now to see now whether USA takes over China in medal tally – this is still a possibility with so many gold medals to win in Athletics - a US stronghold.

Can Cricket Be The 'Football' For India?

One theme that was discussed at the WAN organised Digital Winners, 2007 meet (where I had been), was the importance of Football for media. Football is one great leveller. It is secular, it is popular, and thanks to media attention, it is highly glamourous.

Now, when more and more media houses are shifting their focus to the interfaces of tomorrow - web & mobile, they want something reliable to test their business models and also to minimise the risk. Here, Football comes into picture. As Noam Chomsky has said, sports is one thing that still remains in public sphere of control, totally. All other things - polity, commerec etc. are more or less, into control of other entities - State, mainly. This control helps an ordinary person to connect with the game very easily. He has full liberty of expression in the arena. Complete freedom of speech. It is like the freedom of expression, which is enjoyed by parliamentarians within parliament premises. You can cheer a team, you can boo a team, you can insult, cry, do whatever your adrenaline prompts you to. Further, an ordinary fan of the game likes not only the game, which end only in 90 minutes or so, but also whole context of game. Fan wants to see football as a complete story - story full of varied characters, their lives, conflicts and tenssions, ups and downs of the heroes etc. It is like a movie script.

This is where the media houses stand a good chance to play the roll of mediator between the game of 90 minutes and a rich story, which the fans love more. If presented in this form, the consumers are really winning to pay for the content. The content can be clips, interviews, match streaming, wallpapers, themes, commercials etc. Further strong links can be established between consumers and the sellers of the Football caps, tee-shirts, shields, shoes and so on and on, there is little limit to what can be sold.

This potential of game is now well recognised by the media houses all over the world. In many countries in Europe, newspapers devoted to football have top circulations. A telecom company like Telenor (under whose premise the Digital Winners event was held) has established a separate division named Football Telenor, which has aggressive plans for future.

The question that popped again and again in my mind was - Can the success of 'football + media', be replicated in India? India is poised to enter the 3G game on a big scale and broadband is an 'IN' thing now (Govt. of India has declared 2007 as the 'Year of Broadband'). During this transition, Cricket can be a great help for all the media industry in India. What is your take?