On February 15, the Odisha government made heads turn with a first-of-its-kind business venture in the country: a state sponsoring a national team. As part of the association, they will be the official sponsors of all national hockey teams—junior and senior, men and women—in a deal said to be worth around `150 crore over the next five years. It’s one of those decisions that make astute sense for all parties concerned. For Hockey India, which had terminated its existing contract with Sahara, this gives them the opportunity to move on.
But the bigger winner is the state government, trying to portray itself as an upcoming sports hub. The eleventh hour bid and the successful hosting of the Asian Athletics Championships last July gave the state a benchmark to aspire to. The success of the Hockey World League Final last year— small hiccups notwithstanding—only emboldened them. That Bhubaneswar, once a sporting outpost to Cuttack, will play host to the Hockey World Cup goes to explain why CM Naveen Patnaik threw his weight behind the deal. Also sports is a non-controversial sector. Hockey for the state has been a unifying factor.
That’s just one side of the story. A jam-packed 2018 for the seniors, both men and women (Commonwealth Games in April, a possible Champions Trophy in June-July and the women’s World Cup in July-August followed by the Asian Games in August), automatically gives the state a visibility boost ahead of the men’s World Cup, where they are expecting thousands of foreign tourists (the state’s tourism machinery is one of the best in India). There is an argument to be made that they could have ploughed the money into developing infrastructure. It all depends on the return. Hockey has been used as the hook to effectively sell the state’s narrative of a modern sporting culture. What comes next—a bid to host the Super Cup, a knockout tournament featuring the best of ISL and I-League is believed to be in the pipeline—will be fascinating to see.