March 15, 2010, 10:22 AM EDT
March 15 (Bloomberg) — IMG Worldwide inc., which manages the careers of Tiger Woods and Maria Sharapova, teamed up with Asia’s richest man to popularize games including basketball and soccer in India, a nation obsessed with cricket.
Ted Forstmann, chairman of IMG and co-founder of buyout firm Forstmann Little & Co., and billionaire Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries ltd., plan to set up an elite sports academy to train athletes in India, where four-fifths of the population is under 50. Forstmann, who acquired IMG in 2004, declined to give financial information about the venture.
“The idea is to try to begin to make this country much more proficient in sports other than cricket,” Forstmann said in an interview in Mumbai today. “The No. 1 sport in the world is soccer. it would be a great thing for this country to have a really competitive national team.”
While cricket attracts sponsors including Citigroup inc. and Vodafone Group Plc, India ranks 132nd among soccer playing nations and has won just one individual Olympic gold medal. an Indian league of the Twenty20 format, the newest and shortest version of cricket, a game often played with makeshift bats and balls in backstreet slums to posh clubs, sold media rights for $1.8 billion.
IMG and Reliance, India’s most valuable company with interests in oil and gas, plan to sponsor athletes, build sports facilities and create professional leagues, Forstmann said.
Forstmann, whose company also manages the career of Venus Williams, declined to comment on Woods’ return from his self- imposed exile from competitive golf.
‘Gigantic’ Market
“The market is gigantic,” said Forstmann, whose company helped set up the Indian Premier League for the Twenty20 format. “In a country with a middle class growing like India, sports entertainment and media are going to be things that the country is going to want more and more.”
India secured the top place for Test-playing nations in December, according to the International Cricket Council. the world’s second-most populous nation’s 132nd ranking in soccer puts India in between the island-states of Fiji and Grenada, which have a combined population of less than 1 million, according to FIFA’s Web site.
Ambani, whose fortune is estimated at $32 billion by Forbes magazine, in January paid $2.75 million for West Indian cricketer Kieron Pollard to play in his team in the third season of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament. A Twenty20 game, accompanied by cheerleaders, fireworks and music, lasts for three hours, compared with a day for one-day matches and the longer five-day format..
IMG Reliance Pvt. will use “special-purpose vehicles,” to build sporting infrastructure and will replicate IMG’s facilities in Bradenton, Florida, which have trained athletes, including tennis players Andre Agassi and National Basketball Association player Vince Carter.
‘Heroes get Created’
IMG and Reliance will begin this year by sponsoring 20 Indian students to train in Florida. the cost of a full-time boarding program there starts at $25,200 a semester, according to IMG’s Web site.
“Heroes get created,” and the venture aims to produce world-class athletes in golf, tennis, soccer, basketball, and Olympic sports to help India “go win some medals,” Forstmann said.
Abhinav Bindra won India’s first individual Olympic gold medal in the 10-meter air rifle event at the Beijing Games in 2008. Uzbekistan, which has a population of 27 million, about the same as the number of people who live in the cities of new Delhi and Mumbai combined, has won five individual Olympic medals. Thailand has won seven.
Forstmann called his partnership with Ambani “felicitous,” saying the pair shared a love of sport and its societal value.
Ambani “believes very strongly that sports is one element of building a nation,” Forstmann said. “And at the end of the day, there are sometimes commercial applications as well.”
–Editors: Arijit Ghosh, Abhay Singh
To contact the reporter on this story: Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai at npearson7@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Clyde Russell at crussell7@bloomberg.net.
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